Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s easyGroup empire threatened action against online dating group Easydate yesterday in a row over alleged trademark infringement.

The group, which licenses the “Easy” name to businesses including EasyJet, EasyCar and EasyHotel, claimed Easydate was trying to pass itself off as being part of the “Easy” brand and warned it to change the company name.

Edinburgh-based Easydate listed on the stock market only in June, but was set up by Bill Dobbie and his Ukrainian business partner Max Polyakov in 2005 and has already built up a base of more than nine million members in the UK and internationally.

But EasyGroup said it owned the intellectual property rights for the “Easy” family of trademarks and had already been in contact with Easydate claiming infringement.

Sir Stelios, the founder of EasyJet, said: “Easydate is taking unfair advantage of the strong reputation of my ‘Easy’ brand in order to obtain an undeserved commercial advantage.

“Unless Easydate stops using its brand and domain name, I will take further action to protect the Easy name.”

Sir Stelios has been engaged in a long-running dispute with the EasyJet board over its growth plans and recently threatened to withdraw the rights to the “Easy” brand in a row over punctuality.

The entrepreneur quit the EasyJet board in May but his family still hold a combined 38 per cent stake in the low-cost operator. The airline has also been involved in a court battle with Sir Stelios over the use of the licence for non-airline products such as car hire.

Sir Stelios yesterday refuted recent claims by Easydate in a newspaper report that it had not received any letters from EasyGroup over the issue.

Mr Dobbie told the Daily Mail earlier this week: “I wouldn’t be surprised if I was to get a letter from EasyGroup. If we did, I’m sure we’d approach EasyGroup with a plan for us to keep the name.”

But Sir Stelios said Mr Dobbie was “aware of our claims and has responded to our letter”.