Fitbug, the online activity tracker and wellness coach, has filed a complaint against popular fit-tech startup Fitbit alleging trademark infringement and unfair competition and business practices.

Fitbug claims Fitbit has caused irreparable harm and damage to their company, and it has asked the U.S. District Court in Northern California to order Fitbit to stop allegedly using its Fitbit mark and conduct that causes confusion with Fitbug’s brand.

Founded in 2005, Fitbug combines activity-tracking devices with web and mobile technology that gives personalized weekly activity and nutrition targets as well as advice, feedback, and encouragement. The U.K.-based company started using its trademark “Fitbug” in the U.S. the same year.

Fitbug was one of the first companies in the fitness-technology market, combining electronic tracking devices with digital coaching to help people become healthy and lose weight.

The lawsuit alleges Fitbit created and distributed identical devices and services four years after Fitbug began its operations in the U.S. These actions, and the nearly identical names and marks, have caused confusion among consumers and are damaging Fitbug’s business, according to the suit.

Fitbug said that over the past year, the company has received numerous customer service requests from users needing assistance with their Fitbit devices, and media publications, social media, and potential business partners have confused their products as well.

According to the complaint, Fitbit has mirrored Fitbug’s logo, icons, photographs and imagery on the website, products, and packaging materials, going as far as including a blue dot over the letter “i.” Fitbug recently changed its logo and no longer uses the blue dot.

Fitbit uses similar bright colors, photography, silhouettes, packaging, and imagery on its product that Fitbug began using in 2006. Diagrams monitoring users’ food intake and energy levels are almost identical as well. Some images presented in the suit are shown below.

The lawsuit was filed on March 29. Fitbit has yet to respond to the allegations.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Amazon’s use of the words “app store” in its marketing is not false advertising, a judge has ruled.

A long time ago in a universe unfortunately not very far away, Apple sued Amazon for using the term, which it says can confuse customers. That was, believe it or not, in March 2011. In June of that same year, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton had already said that the case did not look promising for Apple, but the trial was set for October 2012.

At the time, Apple had asserted that Amazon’s use of the term misrepresented what Amazon was actually offering to clients and would cost Apple sales as well as dilute Apple’s brand.

Today, Bloomberg tweeted from the courtroom that the trial is not going well for Apple, as Hamilton has resolved at least one point in that trial in the online retailer’s favor:

Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement, express or implied, of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience. The mere use of “Appstore” by Amazon to designate a site for viewing and downloading/purchasing apps cannot be construed as a representation that the nature, characteristics, or quality of the Amazon Appstore is the same as that of the Apple APP STORE. Apple has pointed to no advertisement by Amazon that qualifies as a false statement under 43(a) of the Lanham Act. Nor is there sufficient evidence to raise a triable issue.

The judge, clearly, disagreed with Apple’s assertions.

There are other aspects to the trial which rely on Apple’s trademark for “app store,” which will continue. Microsoft and other companies such as HTC and Nokia have challenged Apple’s European trademarks for the same term.

Hat tip: 9to5Mac, The Verge

photo credit: Cristiano Betta via photopin cc

Google got a dose of bad news today, as a court revived a longstanding trademark infringement case against it.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has decided to address whether Google is in violation of trademark infringement for selling other companies the rights to use a copyright-protected brand name as an advertising search term.

Right now, clients of Google’s AdWords service can buy any number of specific search terms — terms people would type into a Google search bar — in an effort to drive traffic or attention to their website. The paid links are displayed somewhere near the regular search results. You don’t need to own a trademark in order to buy advertising for the term. In other words, if I wanted to buy advertisements that popped up whenever people searched for “Coke” or “Pepsi,” I could do that, even though the companies that own those trademarks might not be happy about it.

Rosetta Stone Inc., the company best known for producing language learning software, first filed the trademark lawsuit against Google in 2009, claiming that selling brand names as search terms would confuse consumers. It was dismissed a year later by a Virginia district court.

Today, the appeals court overturned the earlier decisions, thus reviving claims that Google could have directly infringed on Rosetta Store and diluted its brand.

“A reasonable trier of fact could find that Google intended to cause confusion in that it acted with the knowledge that confusion was very likely to result from its use of the marks,” wrote Chief Judge William Traxler in the decisions for the court panel. Basically, that means Rosetta Stone has to prove that Google purposefully sold the search term “Rosetta Stone” to a competing software company that resulted in confusion to people wishing to buy language education software.

“We’re very pleased with the opinion, and we think it is an important precedent,” said Rosetta Stone’s lawyer Cliff Sloan.

This is a pretty important case because if Google is found guilty, it could drastically change the way things are marketed online. You’d not be able to buy search terms for any number of brands without running into legal trouble. It’s for that reason alone that I expect freedom of speech advocates to come out of the woodwork if the case advances further.

Via Reuters

“We are pleased to arrive at an agreement that protects Facebook’s brand and trademark and allows for Lamebook’s continued operation,” the companies said in a joint statement, released on Thursday, Aug. 25. “The parties are now satisfied that users are not likely to be confused.”

Joshua Huck, a writer and self-described “ne’er-do-well” behind Lamebook.com, sent VentureBeat a note today that the settlement had happened. There was no widespread announcement. The settlement came just in time for Huck, who will be releasing a book in 2012 with the title Lamebook: The Best of the Worst on Facebook (Chronicle Books). No one at Lamebook is being allowed to comment on the agreement. We’re waiting to hear back from Facebook.

This settlement concludes a twisty tale of lawsuits in which Facebook claimed Lamebook diluted the Facebook brand.

Lamebook received cease-and-desist letters from Facebook attorneys in March 2010 and then Lamebook sued Facebook in November in federal court in Austin, Texas. Lamebook said its name did not infringe Facebook’s trademarks and the name was an obvious parody, making it protected by the First Amendment.

Four days later, lawyers for Facebook sued Lamebook for trademark infringement in federal court in San Jose. Facebook tried and failed to have Lamebook’s suit in Austin (the Western District) transferred to the Northern District of Texas. Perhaps that’s because Austin is a tech-friendly town with a strong entrepreneurial spirit?

Facebook dismissed the San Jose suit in June without prejudice, which means the case was dismissed but could be refiled in the future, and then filed counterclaims against Lamebook in the Austin suit. That’s the suit that was settled on the 25th.

Dizzy, yet? If not, there’s more. Facebook lawsuits against FacebookOfSex.com and Faceporn.com both continue in federal courts.

Facebook filed a lawsuit Thursday against several companies that bought domain names similar to facebook.com, alleging trademark infringement.

The dispute, first reported on the web site of online-marketer Bill Hartzer, concerns domain names that are either typos or closely related to Facebook.com. The giant social network, which calls the owners of these domains “typosquatters”, claims that these domains are examples of trademark infringement.

“(The) defendants’ schemes also diminish the goodwill associated with Facebook and its marks, injure Facebook’s reputation, breach enforceable agreements between Defendants and Facebook, interfere with Facebook’s business, and unjustly enrich Defendants,” Facebook states in the court document. “Facebook therefore seeks an order cancelling Defendants’ rights in their typosquatter domain names or transferring those typosquatter domain names to Facebook, awarding Facebook damages and providing other relief.”

A total of 25 defendants are listed in the “Facebook, Inc. v. Cyber2Media, Inc. et al” lawsuit –  only a handful of them are individuals, with the rest being companies. Some of the domains in dispute include facebobk.com, facemook.com, wwwfacefook.com, ffacebook.com and faecbook.com.

Facebook has previously won trademark lawsuits against the owners of domains that included the “Facebook” name, such as FacebookStuff.com and KillFacebook.com. In 2007, the company was awarded a victory over a cybersquatter that owned Face-book.com.