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Cannery casinos owner sues Web site operator
Thursday, June 11, 2009 | 11:38 a.m.
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The owner of the Cannery casinos in Las Vegas is suing the owner of a Web site that Cannery says infringes on its name -- and then links to competing hotel-casino Web sites.
Cannery Casino Resorts LLC filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court against an unknown party running the Web site, which includes the words "Cannery" and "casino" in its address.
Internet users calling up the site find a page with links to apparently authentic Web sites operated by competing hotel-casinos.
Cannery, in its lawsuit, says that over the years it has filed 44 applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering its Cannery and related trademarks and that the Cannery name has substantial brand value.
The suit alleges trademark violations, unfair competition and violations of the federal Anti-Cybersquatting and Consumer Protection Act.
The Anti-Cybersquatting law targets "cybersquatters" who try to profit by the bulk registration of Internet domain names that include the names of well known companies, products and services.
By using the Cannery name for its Web site, the lawsuit says the defendants are "likely to deceive the public into believing that ... defendants are authorized by Cannery to use the infringing mark or the infringing domain name, or that ... defendants maintain an affiliation with Cannery to use the infringing mark or the infringing domain name, when in fact ... defendants are not so authorized by Cannery and ... defendants are not affiliated with Cannery."
Wednesday's suit against "Doe" individuals and "Roe" corporate entities was filed by attorneys James Boyle and Kimberly Cooper of the law firm Santoro, Driggs, Walch, Kearney, Holley & Thompson.
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Cannery..."substantial brand value"...LOL
when are companies going to learn that they lose more money by coming off as litigious jerks than they ever win in these lawsuits.
Sounds like a legitimate complaint against a cybersquatter... I bet its one of those "pages" that is just a search page with links to competing pages, and the page author gets some amount of money per click. These people need to be sued off the face of the earth.
If I own a business ABCD Inc and have ABCD.COM and someone years later buys ABCDINC.COM and starts pointing to competitors, you bet your bottom they will get sued into oblivion. It's a blatant money grab off of someone else's hard work.
These sites waste my time & irritate me. (Ex. Allegiant.com - Allegiantair.com) Sue their ass off!
I would think The Cannery Casino Resorts could find a more useful purpose for their capital than a petty lawsuit that will not gain them or the supposed reputation a dime. If a poll was taken of their customers there are many ways to enhance their precious intrinsic value, which by all accords is very minimal at best, than these cheap maneuvers.Visionaries they are not opportunists they are.
Any Company with half a brain at the top would register at least the most obvious misspells of their website(s). At $7 a year per name this is a no brainer to facilitate potential customers that are also bad spellers. Even if you did'nt do this before your brand became popular, which almost always takes a few years at least, you can still win the domains back without going to court as long as you have a trademark on your brand...these co's need to wake up to the Internet age. Opportunists are entrepreneurs, they find $ where you leave it sitting around.