Tag Archive for: Logos

Rival Information Security Companies Fight Over Use of Similar Brand Names and Logos

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Red Siege, LLC v. Red Sentry, LLC, Civil Action No. 1:22-cv-04661-LMM (N.D. Ga., Nov. 22, 2022)

Competing information security companies dispute the right to use the name Red Siege and Red Sentry for computer security consultancies. Red Siege, LLC, claims to have been continuously and exclusively using its registered mark in connection with computer consultancy services since at least 2017. The mark is used in commerce on its website, at security trade shows, and conferences. Red Sentry, LLC, has been using the allegedly infringing mark since 2021, when the company changed its name from “Offensive AI Holdings, LLC” to its current name.

According to the complaint, Red Sentry is a direct competitor purporting to sell identical services and causing confusion in the market. The complaint sites at least one third party who asserted at a trade convention that he believed the two companies were affiliated. Red Siege further contends that the Defendant was aware of the pre-existing mark yet purposefully assumed the name to compete, confuse, and trade off the goodwill and success of the original name-holder. As such, Red Siege alleges willful infringement and seeks damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs.

While Red Siege and Red Sentry battle to use their brand names, domain names, and logos, one wonders whether Red Hat, Inc., which registered its mark in 2000 for similar fields, may decide to enter the fray.

Update: On November 30, Judge May denied Plaintiff Red Siege’s motion for an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO), giving the Defendant Red Sentry an opportunity to appear and be heard on the merits of the case. A hearing for the Preliminary Injunction is set for December 19.

Source…

Monster Energy Opposes Teenager’s Trademark Application Over Logos Not At All Similar

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Monster Energy. The company’s name is enough to set the average Techdirt reader’s eyes rolling. The company that makes sugar-heavy energy drinks has become essentially a caricature of an overly aggressive trademark enforcer. This habit is somewhat surprising, given just how often the company loses lawsuits and oppositions, which one would think would be a deterrent for future behavior. Instead, it almost seems as though every loss only spurs Monster Energy on.

This continues on to today, when we learn that Monster Energy filed an opposition to a 21-year-old’s trademark application for his business, Monarch Energy. You’re probably thinking that the opposition is over the name of the young man’s company, which would itself be a stretch as trademark infringement. But, no, it’s over the kid’s proposed logo.

At age 16, Mason McGuire discovered arthritis in his lower back. The mountain biker, baseball player and motorcycle rider wanted to stay active without aggravating his newfound aches. One year older, the Forest Charter School graduate decided to start his own business to mitigate his problems, and hopefully ease those of others.

While taking a business course at Sierra College, the words of one individual continued to ring in his head: “My teacher kept saying, ‘You’ll never learn it until you do it,’” he said.

So he did.

But on July 30, McGuire received a letter that stunted his company’s development. Monster Energy filed a notice of opposition against his company, Monarch Energy, for violating trademark rules. Specifically, it said McGuire’s logo was too similar to Monster’s.

Are the logos similar? No, they damn well are not.

Trademark imageImage result for monster energy logo

Other than the fact that both logos incorporate the letter “M” and both companies list their names below that “M”, there is little to nothing similar about these two logos. The names of the companies, both prominently displayed, are different. The fonts are different. The styling around the letter “M” is different. The rest of the trade dress is different. Are people going to be confused by these two company logos? No, they absolutely are not.

And, yet, this 21 year old has had to deal with this opposition before even getting his company truly off the ground.

Despite maintaining distinctions, McGuire said he was a bit nervous Monster Energy would file a claim against his company, because of Monster’s history of filing lawsuits, so he tried doing his due diligence before choosing the logo.

“I made sure to go over the rules many times that wouldn’t infringe with Monster,” he said. But, he later said he suspected the large energy company might intervene legally anyway.

McGuire acknowledges that there is no trademark police per se, meaning that Monster Energy must be aware of smaller businesses trying to exploit its brand. But, he added, the company can drop the court filing once it realizes an entrepreneur is not acting in bad faith.

“I don’t care too much that they’re going after me,” he said. But McGuire — who has yet to hire an attorney — said he could lose his business with the possible legal fees needed to combat Monster Energy. He also said he can’t afford a new trademark to change his logo, for which he’s already paid.

Monster Energy doesn’t have to care about the harm it’s doing, of course, but it certainly should. Especially when this is yet another example of an opposition that never needed to be filed. But because Monster Energy wants to play the bully, a young man that started a business might lose it.

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YM Inc. Beats Roots Inc. In Trademark Suit Over Two Logos That Don’t Look Anything Alike

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In far too many of the trademark disputes we cover here, those disputes center around two competing logos or trade dress that look nothing alike, save for one very generic component. To get a sense of what I mean, you can refer back to the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals bullying a financial services company because its logo used a capital “W.” Or the time one sausage company sued another because both logos had, sigh, a pig in them.

Or, now, when clothier Roots Corp. tried to nullify a trademark held by YM, Inc. because both had clothing lines with logos that included log cabins.

Roots had applied to strike YM’s registered trademark for a logo that featured a cabin surrounded by two trees and the words “Cabin Fever” beneath it, arguing that it was invalid for several reasons. According to a federal court document, Roots said the logo was confusing with its existing trademarks, that the YM Inc. trademark was not distinctive, and that the mark was only being used on some of the goods listed in the application. YM disputed all of Roots’ arguments.

And it’s easy to understand why the moment you take a look at the two logos in question.

Here again we have one single aspect that can be said to be similar about each logo: both include a cabin set against trees. Beyond that, nothing else is similar. The cabins themselves aren’t similar. Neither are the trees. Nothing in the rest of the images — from colors to shapes to wording to font — is even remotely similar. It’s enough to make you wonder if any public confusion was really the worry here, or if this was just one rival clothing company trying to push around another.

It seems the judge overseeing the request had similar concerns.

In the end, Federal Court Justice George R. Locke dismissed Roots’ application to strike YM’s trademark registration, concluding that the rival’s mark “was not confusing” with any of the Roots’ cabin-related trademarks, despite some similarities in the trademark and products sold by both companies.

“The cabin image itself used in YM’s Cabin Fever Design Mark is not particularly similar to either of the cabin images used by Roots,” Locke wrote in his January 8 decision, adding that using an image of a cabin was “no more distinctive” than using the word cabin.

“The word ‘cabin’ suggests a small house in the woods, and trees are inherent in such an environment. It is not distinctive to incorporate trees in an image of a cabin.”

Roots also suggested that YM’s entire trademark should be cancelled because it had applied for the mark with far more market designations than it was in fact using. The judge disagreed, however, taking the much more common sense approach of simply limiting the trademark to the markets in which YM is using it, of which there are something like ten. This again seems to indicate that this is all simple bullying, rather than any true concern for customer confusion.

And so we end up with a good ruling, one which actually takes care to address the tests for trademark infringement rather than simply looking at two logos that both have log cabins and deciding that infringement must have occurred. It would have been nice for the legal staff at Roots to have taken such care as well.

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