Lady Gaga Files Trademark Lawsuit

Phoro credit: FilmMagic

A Nevada company is using Lady Gaga’s name to sell jewelry and cosmetics and she's not happy about it.

The Grammy Award winning singer filed a trademark infringement lawsuit last week in New York against Excite Worldwide for trying to trademark the names "Lady Gaga" and "Lady Gaga LG” without her permission, the Associated Press reports.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records show the applications haven't been approved, the AP reports, but the singer and fashion icon says they're making it difficult to add her own trademarks surrounding her name.

Her suit says customers could be duped into thinking she's affiliated with Excite Worldwide's products, the AP reports. She's seeking unspecified damages.

The website, exciteworldwide.com, has been disabled.

Report: Tiffany Goes After More Counterfeiters

In its ongoing assault against online counterfeiters, Tiffany & Co. is suing several China companies for selling copied versions of its jeweler and misrepresenting its brand, according to a report in the U.K.-based trade publication, Professional Jeweller.

The luxury retail jeweler has filed a lawsuit against Alice Don, Alice Huang, Fiona Jones, and four other China-based defendants, all of whom Tiffany claims are behind sites retailing counterfeit Tiffany-branded jewelry. They include domain names Tiffanyinthebox.com, tiffany4girls.com and pandoraoutlets.com., according to the report.

The suit filed by Tiffany in New York is claiming trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting, false designation of origin, trademark dilution, and unfair competition, according to the report.

The New York-based company, in its complaint, reportedly says the websites sell counterfeit versions of its merchandise, which “not only copy the designs, patterns, and color schemes associated with Tiffany products, but also expressly identify the counterfeit products as ‘Tiffany’ and make unauthorized use of the trademark Tiffany name.”

According to the report, the defendants admit that the counterfeit products they offer for sale are not authentic, but are instead marketed as replica and less expensive versions of Tiffany jewelry.

Tiffany is asking the US court to ban the sites from selling counterfeit items while transferring their ownership to Tiffany, according to the report. The company is also asking for monetary damages.

In December 2010, Tiffany filed suit against three Chinese nationals and other unnamed defendants for operating 44 websites that offer counterfeit Tiffany products.

Tiffany Sues Chinese Counterfeit Websites

Tiffany & Co. has filed a lawsuit against 44 websites based in China that sell counterfeit Tiffany products.

The civil suit argues that the websites are “are promoting, selling, offering for sale and distributing counterfeit and infringing Tiffany branded products.”

The lawsuit adds that the websites “constitute willful and intentional infringement and counterfeiting of Tiffany's trademarks in total disregard of Tiffany's rights, and have taken place … in spite of defendants' knowledge that their use of Tiffany's trademarks was and is in direct contravention of Tiffany's rights.”

The three defendants listed in the complaint are Ge Wang, King Wang, and Ning Zhou, along with “various unknown associates.” The formal charges are for trademark, counterfeiting and infringement, false designation of origin, and cyberpiracy.

The suit was filed in federal court in Norfolk, Va., the state where the luxury jewelry retailer has its websites registered, according to a story in The Virginian-Pilot. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith on January 18 extended a temporary restraining order that prohibits some 44 websites from selling knockoff Tiffany products. However, the websites quickly change names, and their operators are nearly impossible to locate.

At least some of the websites, such as tiffanymall.org and tiffanystore.org, now redirect visitors to a website that outlines the lawsuit.

Tiffany will seek a preliminary injunction at a hearing on Feb. 1 and, ultimately, a permanent injunction, the newspaper reports.

Law Firms Sued for Letting Diamond Patent Lapse

This comes from “the dog ate my homework” department.

GemEx, the makers of a device that measures the light-performance quality of gemstones have sued their former patent attorneys, contending they negligently let a critical patent lapse, allowing competitors to copy the technology, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

The Mequon, Wisc.-based company uses a patented process that scientifically measures and records the interplay of light reflecting and refracting within diamonds (marketed as “brilliance,” “fire” and “sparkle”) using using scientific spectrophotometry (marketed as the "Brilliancescope," pictured above).

The suit, filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, reportedly says that GemEx owned the market for this type of gem testing because its patent prevented others from using the proprietary process. The patent, according to the suit, was issued in 1997 and would have lasted until 2014.

But GemEx reportedly says their patent lawyers failed to file a maintenance fee in 2004, and, as a result, the patent expired in 2005. Since then, competitors have been using the technology and cutting into GemEx's share of the market, the suit reportedly contends.

The complaint names the Milwaukee law firms Andrus, Sceales, Starke & Sawall and Cook & Franke, plus its former partner, Jeffrey S. Sokol, according to the report.

The complaint reportedly states that the Andrus firm missed a payment in 2004. Then it failed to inform its client. In addition, when Sokol took over the account and moved to Cook & Franke in 2005, the file for the patent didn't make the transfer.

That left everyone so out of the loop that no one even petitioned to reinstate the patent within the two-year window to do so, the suit reportedly contends.

The plaintiffs reportedly said they didn't learn the patent had expired until November 2008. With new counsel, they finally got the patent reinstated in 2010, but competitors already had made inroads during the five years it was lapsed, according to the suit.