New York Times withdraws case Against Time Magazine

The New York Times recently decided to walk away from making further efforts to stop Time magazine. Earlier, NYT files a lawsuit against Time Magazine for using the name “Time 100 Talks” for the series of discussions it hosts with several influential people. The NYT alleged that Time Magazine was infringing their trademark and aimed at creating a sense of confusion among the people regarding theirs and NYT’s show. It was, however, very shocking when Court documents revealed that NYT decided to withdraw their case against Time.

The Gray Lady, however, withdrew its complaint just after the period of four months when The New York Times actually claimed for the very first time that the name was infringing on the trademark of its own live-event series “TimesTalks.”

Court documents evidently show that the newspaper agreed to drop the case “with prejudice” which means that the case can’t be refilled. Further many sources say that no money was ever exchanged between the two rival parties. Time magazine has full freedom to continuously use the “Time 100 Talks” name for promoting its talks with high-profile people.

In fact, Time president and Editor-in-Chief, Edward Felsenthal, also posted several interviews under the previous Time 100 Talks logo with comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Rise founder Amanda Nguyen and author and former Time’s editor Walter Isaacson on the same day when the suit was dropped. However, Time declined to comment on this while the New York Times offered an explanatory statement suggesting they prevailed in court.

“We’re pleased to have reached this outcome, which allows Time100 Talks to coexist with TimesTalks in a way that won’t cause confusion among readers, which was our primary consideration,” said an NYT spokeswoman. Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and Wife Lynne bought Time in a deal of nearly $190 million in the year 2018. However, they have been pushing into podcasts, live events, and TV shows to offset the declines in print.

It’s very interesting that when the suit was initially filed by NYT a Time spokeswoman left mo chance of blasting it as baseless and somewhat bewildering in every sense. “The TIME 100 brand has been registered as a trademark and widely recognized for more than two decades, and the word ‘talks’ is commonly used across similar programs in many industries,” she said at that time.