EBay Wins Appeal Vs. Perfume Bay

[Dave_Z]

Just a recap of a now-locked thread:

http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=150194&highlight=perfumebay

Update:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071106/ap_on_hi_te/ebay_trademark_dilution

A company whose name sounds like eBay Inc.'s has lost its appeal of a court ruling that protected the online auctioneer from "trademark dilution" by e-commerce rivals with similar-sounding names.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's ruling in September 2005 against Perfumebay.com and Perfume-bay.com.

Edit: here's the link to the actual decision:

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/85AEE84897725D758825738A005C180E/$file/0556794.pdf?openelement

 

[DNQuest.com]

Tran, who also owns ScentGuru.com and BeautifulPerfumes.com, asserted in court documents that her company's name wasn't a knockoff of eBay but was meant to recall "a bay filled with ships importing perfumes from all parts of the world."

Has anyone ever had this thought at all, let alone recalling the memory. I do not like the giants getting their way, but I have to admit, that is BS. They knew what they were doing registering that name. Now, if their last name was Bay or somehow had a reason to use that term, then I would be more upset about this decision.

 

[jberryhill]

I do not like the giants getting their way, but I have to admit, that is BS.

Indeed... from the decision:


http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/85AEE84897725D758825738A005C180E/$file/0556794.pdf?openelement

Tran testified that she developed the idea in “late 1998 or
early 1999 . . . to sell perfume from [her] parents’ company
on the internet . . .” Tran first sold perfume on eBay’s web
site. She used “five or six different user names in order to
trade on eBay,” two of which, Beautiful Perfumes and Classy
Perfumes, were web sites owned by Tran for the sale of perfume.
She continued to sell perfume on eBay until October,
2004, when Tran decided that she no longer wanted to use
eBay, because of eBay’s auction approach.

The “target customer for Perfumebay is anyone who has
access to the internet and purchases fragrances and cosmetics
. . .” Tran chose the name for the web site while she was still
selling perfume on eBay. According to Tran, she “did not
have any intention of copying eBay or trying to confuse customers
to come to Perfumebay’s web site because of eBay.”
Tran selected the first part of the name, “perfume,” as a
description of her products. She added the term “bay” because
she “envisioned a bay filled with ships importing perfumes
from all parts of the world and this bay would be the place
where perfume lovers could go to locate the selection of fragrances
. . .”

However, “there was never an image of a bay
filled with ships on [her] web site.” There were not ships on
the web site, and Tran “never explained on [her] web site at
any time that the name Perfumebay was intended to suggest
a bay into which products are brought by ship from abroad
. . .” Her web site developers “never created any kind of
graphical design for the Perfumebay web site that incorporated
a bay filled with ships . . .”

Tran acknowledged that “the Perfumebay web site has,
from time to time, displayed the Perfumebay name as one
word with a capital B . . .” Additionally, “Perfumebay sometimes
refers to itself [as] Perfumeay, capitalizing the letters
P and B in one word . . .” The sign-up documentation for
affiliates “spells the Perfumeay name in one word with the
P and the B capitalized . . .”

[...]

Prior to the lawsuit, Tran learned through her customer service
personnel that “people were calling Perfumebay asking
if it was associated with eBay . . .”

------

You are starting a business. You can call that business anything under the sun, out of an infinitude of possibilities. You are an eBay merchant. You "just happen" to have an independent inspiration to take your product name and stick "Bay" on the end of it.

It may be just me, but it doesn't strike me as some sort of cosmic coincidence.

 

[DNQuest.com]

No offense to everyone, but John is my favorite guy here

 

[Dave_Z]

Why, none taken, Philip. I feel the same way. :D

As usual, thanks for the analysis, John.