Gibson allegedly owns the mark FLYING V and the “Flying VBody Shape Design” and “Flying V Peg-Head Design.” Viacom owns marks for SpongeBob SquarePants. Defendant JHS is a UK corporation that sellsvarious products using the SpongeBob marks. Gibson alleged that a SpongeBob SquarePants Flying V Ukulele infringedits marks and sued for the usual plethora of trademark and related claims.
The complaint alleged that JHS sold products containingViacom’s marks in the US through its catalogs, distributors, and website (www.jhs.co.uk), along with product pages atAmazon. It alleged that “defendants”generally made unauthorized use of the Gibson marks with the intent to mislead,etc. Viacom argued that Gibson failed toplead that Viacom designed, manufactured, or sold the ukulele, and that itsaccusations about “defendants” were a “conclusory lumping together” insufficientunder Iqbal/Twombly. The court agreed that it couldn’t tell whatactions Gibson was alleging were performed by Viacom in particular. “No advertising and promotional materialsattributable to Viacom have been specified, and the only website mentionedarewww.jhs.co.uk, belonging to Viacom's co-defendant, and www.amazon.com, alsoapparently associated with JHS products.”
Given the nature of the defendants—trademark owner and licensee—the complaintshould specify their different roles. Ifthe only specific allegation against Viacom is that it licensed SpongeBob, itsrole in the alleged infringement wouldn’t be the same as that of JHS. To state a claim, Gibson needed to say whichacts were performed by which defendant.
View the Original article
No comments:
Post a Comment