Ebay sues Coinbay. Coinbay decided to change their name to Coinday instead of facing ebay in court. I don't know all of the details, but the case should be dismissed according to the site owner. I don't understand this, because Coinbay.com only have a couple thousand auctions, ebay's only complaint it the fact that Coinbay has "Bay" in the name and they used similar color schemes. Why would ebay even bother? The Lawsuit was for Trademark infringement and dilution. I wish the guy would have fought this case. IMO how could ebay win this case? It sounds like ebay was counting on Bob Martino not to foot the legal bill to defend itself. No one can tell me that ebay has a right to every domain name with "Bay" in it.
yeah, it would be nice if he stood up to ebay. corporate america thinks it has control over the websters dictionary. COinbay. ebay. similar. but ebay does not own the word "bay." blockbuster video sued a pizza shop in fort lauderdale that called itself blockbuster pizza. blockbuster is a common word. the videostore company didnt invent it.
Yeah, eBay doesn't own the trademark to every *bay auction service. I could understand if it was eeBay or aBay but CoinBay shouldn't have to suffer. They should have fought and they most likely would of won. eBay has lost a few lawsuits in the past. Shame.
Even if Blockbuster Video did invent the word "blockbuster" that's not guarantee of a succesful trademark infringement case. In order to prove trademark infringement, you have to prove that someone else is marketing a similar (or identical) product or service under your name or that it's reasonably likely one can be mistaken for the other. Thus, Delta Faucets is not infringing on Delta Airlines' trademark even though they both have "delta" in their name, as it would be unlikely anyone is going to walk into a hardware store trying to buy plane tickets or anyone is going to walk up to a ticket counter trying to buy a faucet. Anyone know how the case went? I wouldn't think Blockbuster would have much of a case, unless they could prove that Blockbuster Pizza was actively trying to encourage people that it had some sort of connection to the video store. I recall a case in Hawaii where a small local brand of baking soda was called Coors, and Coors Brewing Company tried to sue them for trademark infringement. Coors the brewing company lost, as the judge ruled it wasn't reasonable to believe someone would mistake the baking soda for the beer and vice-versa. McDonalds once tried to sue a pub in Scotland for use of the name "McDonald" where the pub pointed out that it was based on the clan name of the owner and had in fact been used long before McDonalds even existed as a company. McDOnalds (the fast food restaurant chain) lost that suit. As for Ebay vs. Coinbay, Ebay may have a case if Coinbay's logo looked especially similar to Ebay's... the color scheme isn't in Coinbay's favor either... but the suffix "bay" itself wouldn't be sufficent evidence of trademark infringement. My guess is that the owner of Coinbay decided the expense and hassle of dending against the lawsuit wouldn't be worth it, even if he'd likely win.
