The City of Detroit slams McDonald with a Trademark Infringement Lawsuit.

18 Jan 2019

Categories: Intellectual Property News

January 18,2019:

American fast food company McDonald’s is being sued by the city of Detroit. Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration is suing the owner of four McDonald’s franchise in Detroit for Trademark Infringement over misrepresenting the restaurants as a part of city’s Project Green Light.

Project Green Light is a surveillance project and the companies in Detroit that participate in the project have surveillance cameras inside and outside of their businesses that can be accessed in real time by law enforcement officials at the Detroit Police Department’s downtown headquarters. There are now 474 businesses in Detroit participating in Project Green Light.

Detroit sued ECS Partnership LLC in US District Court, demanding the McDonald’s franchise to remove the city’s trademarked Project Green Light logo. City attorney James Noseda wrote, “The signage misleads the public and undermines the public safety initiative.”

On September 10, 2018,the city sent a cease and desist letter to ECS Partnership-owned McDonald’s for falsely indicating that the restaurants are part of Project Green Light. Noseda wrote “Defendant's use of plaintiff's (trademark) is clearly intended to mislead customers to believe that the defendant's businesses are either sponsored by or a participant of the 'Project Green Light Detroit' "

The participating companies in Project Green Light have signs on doors and windows. McDonald’s put up a similar sign or “a confusingly similar variation” which led to the lawsuit by the city of Detroit. Project Green Light was trademarked two years ago by Duggan’s administration.

Initially McDonald’s tried to be a part of the Project Green Light but as they could not comply with the Project Green Light’s basic terms i.e. providing proper lighting and equipments, due to this non compliance their membership was terminated. Notices were sent to the franchise owners of McDonald’s repeatedly to take down the signage from all the outlets which didn’t meet the requirements. The lawsuits states McDonalds failed to meet the requirements which resulted in legal consequences.