November 18,2018:

A lawsuit has been filed against Bank of America by Erik Underwood, a resident of the state of Colorado in the United States for the use of “ERICA”, a virtual assistant for financial purposes.

The plaintiff is the founder of My24HourNews.Com, he claims that he had already registered the trademark in Georgia for a virtual personal assistant by the name E.R.I.C.A (electronic repetitious informational clone application) in 2010. ERICA was initially used as a virtual news anchor and was later used as a virtual search engine and personal assistant. Erik Underwood’s ERICA is a female character with blue eyes and dark brown hair.

The first complaint against Bank of America by Erik was filed on 11th September 2018 followed by which, two cease-and-desist letters were sent to the defendant. However, the bank didn’t stop to use of the disputed mark. According to the complaint, the two avatars are strikingly similar and thus hamper the Underwood’s attempt of expanding “ERICA”. Also, “both are female avatars that provide information, news and commentary” and that “both marks relate to intelligent personal assistant services both being delivered to tablets and mobile phones.”

On one end, Underwood is seeking damages for the use of ERICA by Bank of America, while on the other end, the latter denies all claims made by Underwood and says that this is a case of extortion. Moreover, Bank of America states that the trademark registering process had started in 2016 and the trademark was successfully registered in early 2017 and had invested $60 million in developing “ERICA” infrastructure so far.

Randall Springer, Bank of America’s investigate attorney says that Erica is a common name and the confusion between the two avatars is improbable as the users would have to log in to the respective portals in order to access “ERICA”.

Bank of America has further requested the court to delay the hearing of this case until the next year 2019, which has been denied by the court. Will Bank of America lose its rights over Erica or will it be able to save its 60 Million Dollar invested, it is yet to be seen.

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