“Inter” or the fight between Miami and Milan’s soccer clubs / GTA running over the infringers / Lil Nas X accused of copyright infringement / New Zealand joins TMView

Good morning everyone. February is passing by at incredible speed. Here the news for this week.

“Inter” or the fight between Miami and Milan’s soccer clubs

Back in 2014, the Internazionale filed for trade mark protection before the US Patent and Trademark Office in order to obtain exclusive use of “Inter”, therefore baring other clubs from marketing themselves under the same name. The Major League Soccer (MLS) defending its newest club, the “Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami”, filed a notice of opposition pleading that “Inter” appears among the names of many other soccer clubs and should therefore not belong to one club only. Hence, this would also cause confusion amongst consumers who do not associate “Inter” with one club only. This ground of opposition was dismissed by the USPTO examiner.

After that, the MLS filed another opposition now pleading that they have “substantial reasons for fearing damage to itself and member clubs if ‘Inter’ is registered” given the links that exist between the MLS and other clubs that incorporate the word “Inter” and also pleading that the Inter Miami will coexist peacefully with other Inter soccer team.

The dispute is still ongoing and there is no possibility, at this stage, to know where the conflict will be heading. We will definitely keep you updated!

GTA running over the infringers

Last week, an English court ruled in favor of Grant Theft Auto V’s developer (Rockstar Games) in its lawsuit against the distributors of cheat codes. The creators of “Epsilon” the cheating Software, enabled players to easily gain multiple advantages in the multiplayer online mode to the detriment of other players. This also impacted negatively on Rockstar Games as Epsilon allowed users to gain advantages without having to purchase them in the game with the consequent reduction of income for the developer. The company was therefore ordered to pay 150.000 dollars in damages.

Lil Nas X accused of copyright infringement

Don Lee and Glen Keith, filed a copyright infringement claim against Lil Nas X arguing that “Rodeo” incorporates their 2017 work “gwenXdonlee4-142”, work that was then legally incorporated into “Broad Day”. Lil Nas X argues that “Rodeo” was created without knowledge of the existence of the allegedly infringed work. The lawsuit is in its initial stages and we will have to monitor it to see how this ends.

New Zealand joins TMView

On the 17^th of February, the IP Office of New Zealand made available its trade mark database in TMView. We welcome this addition!

This is all for his week.

Interesting reading:

• For our Start Trek fans, we strongly recommend this article by the IPWatchDog - https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/02/13/space-force-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-trademark-infringement/id=118851/