Wednesday, May 12, 2010 | 10:32 a.m.
The owners of a Las Vegas real estate school have been sued over allegations it's infringing on a trademark by offering a course leading to a Certified Distressed Property Designation (CDPD).
On its website, Harris Real Estate University offers a $97 "agent short sale class" that "demystifies the process of generating, listing, selling and closing the short sale transaction" and that leads to a CDPD designation as well as an LDPD (Luxury Distressed Property Designation).
Harris notes on its website that its designations are not recognized by the National Association of Realtors or any state association of Realtors.
The company has no right to use the CDPD designation since that's protected under a trademark obtained by the Distressed Property Institute LLC of Austin, Texas, the Distressed Property Institute alleges in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
The suit was filed against Timothy and Julie Harris and Harris Success Systems LLC, owner of Harris Real Estate University. A request for comment was placed with the defendants on Wednesday.
The Distressed Property Institute says in the lawsuit that since January 2008, it has provided live and online classes, seminars and workshops to train participants about assisting homeowners in executing short sales and otherwise dealing with foreclosure situations.
The plaintiff says it has used the marks CDPE and Certified Distressed Property Expert in connection with these classes, that it has spent more than $2.2 million in advertising its marks on its website www.cdpe.com and in other media; and that nationwide real estate company RE/MAX in March chose the plaintiff's CDPE mark as the certification designation for more than 10,000 of its agents as part of RE/MAX's efforts to help stem the foreclosure crisis.
The institute says that as the result of its use of the CDPE marks, it now has more than 20,900 paid members nationwide who hold the CDPE designation and that it has earned more than $10.8 million in gross revenue providing educational services using these marks.
"By using the infringing marks to promote their educational services and as a professional real estate designation, defendants are attempting to trade on plaintiff’s business, reputation and goodwill in its CDPE marks," the lawsuit says.
"Defendants have also intentionally used plaintiff’s own CDPE marks to pass off their own educational program as that of the plaintiff’s educational program," charges the lawsuit, which alleges federal and state trademark infringement, unfair competition, deceptive trade practices and other counts.
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