Tag: trademark

January 22, 2008 Trademarks

Filter maker says Apple’s trademark threats a bunch of hot air

“Lowest perceptive capabilities.” Is that code for “a moron in a hurry“?

Chicago-based BlueAir, Inc. has apparently been getting some threats from Apple over BlueAir’s pending trademark registration for the mark AIRPOD, to be used in connection with desk top air purifiers. Apple says AIRPOD will infringe on the IPOD mark.

BlueAir has gone on the offensive, asking the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to enter a declaratory judgment of no infringement.

The heart of BlueAir’s allegations are as follows:

“There is no reasonable likelihood of confusion, mistake, or error in the marketplace for persons of even the lowest perceptive capabilities who are seeking an iPod music player considering or buying an AIRPOD desktop air cleaner instead.”

This dispute has been going on for a few months, and it is interesting to see suit filed now, to essentially coincide with the introduction of the MacBook Air.

BlueAir, Inc. v. Apple, Inc., No. 08-427 (N.D. Ill. filed January 18, 2007)
[Download the Complaint]

November 14, 2007 Contracts, Trademarks

Ownership of domain name grounds for civil contempt and award of attorney’s fees

But mere ownership of domain name, without “use,” was not enough to give rise to infringement.

Careylicensing, Inc. v. Erlich, No. 05-1194, 2007 WL 3146559 (E.D. Mo. October 25, 2007)

Plaintiff Carey International and defendant International Chauffeured Services are competitors in the limousine industry. Carey sued International back in 2005 for trademark infringement, and the parties settled the case. They entered into a consent judgment, which is, essentially, like a contract between the parties that was made an order of the court. The consent judgment prohibited, among other things, the defendant from owning any domain name containing the word “Carey.”

In February 2007, the plaintiff noticed that the defendant owned a domain name careylimousine.net. The plaintiff eventually went back into court, asking that the defendant be held in contempt for violating the consent judgment and, pursuant to the terms of the consent judgment, be awarded attorneys fees and “liquidated damages,” for breaching the agreement.

The court found that ownership of the domain name by the defendant warranted a contempt citation. It also found that that ownership was a breach that made an award of attorney’s fees proper. But the court declined to award liquidated damages.

The consent judgment provided that liquidated damages be awarded for any “infringement” of the plaintiff’s mark. But in this case, there was no infringement. The court found that merely owning the domain name, without having an active site there, was not a “use” in commerce as required by the Lanham Act. Without the requisite element of use, there could be no infringement.

Scroll to top