Detroit Athletic Club versus Detroit Athletic Co. Trademark Infringement Case

20 Jan 2019

Categories: Intellectual Property News

January 20,2019:

Detroit Athletic Club filed a lawsuit against Detroit Athletic Co. For infringing their trademark. They filed the lawsuit on 3rd January 2019, at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

The defendant is a sports apparel retailer since 1987. The Detroit Athletic Club alleged that Detroit Athletic Co. violated their trademarks “Detroit Athletic Club” and “DAC”.

According to the allegation, they are continuing to operate a website with domain “www.detroitathletic.com” as well.

Alongside owning a website with the domain name “www.detroitathletic.com”, the defendant was also accused of using the name “DAC” in their promotional emails.

According to the claim, Detroit Athletic Club is the owner of both of these trademarks since 2002. The defendant used their trademarks without permission from them.

The defendant tried to apply to register these marks as their own, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2015 too. But their request was denied as well. This activity can cause confusion among consumers of the club too.

According to the claim, the name of the website can cause a higher degree of confusion among consumers. They can be misled to think that there is any sort of association between the two entities. They can think that Detroit Athletic's goods, services are made, sold or distributed by the DAC club.

They may think that the sports retailer has the endorsement or sponsorship from DAC club as well. The defendant denied the allegations made by the plaintiff from the beginning.

The DAC club requested the Court to provide a ruling in their favour and stop the defendants from further infringing the trademarks. The Court is yet to decide a ruling for this case.