Dear Terry Hall,
Thank you for taking the time to write and express your opinion.
Nissan values you as our customer, thus we would like to share with you the true facts of the case.
As this case is pending litigation we cannot provide extensive comment. Briefly, however, we believe that Nissan Computer Corporation is improperly exploiting consumer confusion for its own benefit and creating ill-will among Nissan?s actual and potential customers. For example, NCC had been linking non-Nissan automotive advertising in its Nissan.com website, which understandably concerned Nissan due to the customer confusion it created.
The Federal District Court agreed with Nissan?s position and ordered a Preliminary Injunction that, among other things, ordered NCC to remove all auto-related links from its website. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed this ruling and held that "NCC clearly altered its website so as to capitalize on the "initial interest confusion" of consumers who visited the websites looking for [Nissan's] products."
More recently, the Federal District Court found that NCC had infringed the NISSAN trademark and stated: "..., the Court finds that the defendant's alteration of the "nissan.com" website in August 1999 to display auto-related advertising and information, indisputably leads to the inference that [NCC] possessed the intent to confuse consumers." (emphasis added.) NCC's effort to cast itself as the victim here is an illusion.
It is our position that NCC set out to profit by confusing consumers. Nissan had no choice but to act to stop NCC's intentional exploitation of consumer confusion and two courts have agreed with Nissan on this point. Now, having been at least partially prevented from confusing consumers for profit, NCC is attempting to disparage Nissan, and has altered its website in support of this effort.
Nissan is confident that its consumers will see through this disturbing effort, which has nothing to do with the very high quality automobiles that Nissan is very proud of delivering to its customers throughout the US and the world. Nissan plans to continue delivering quality products, acting to eliminate consumer confusion to the greatest extent possible, and insuring that consumers looking for Nissan, the automaker, know where to find us.
We hope that this information has helped, but if you need any additional information or have further questions, please let us know by reply e-mail or by calling 1-800-647-7263 and pressing "0" for a live operator.
At Nissan, we are committed to a high level of customer service.
Sincerely,
Nissan North America
