This nonsense is somehow still going. To catch you up if you’re not familiar with this story, the Ravinia Festival Association operates the Ravinia Festival venue in the north suburbs of Chicago. When a small brewery opened its doors in Highland Park, calling itself Ravinia Brewing Company, the RFA objected to its name and convinced the brewery to enter into an agreement whereby the RFA would not object to the name or sue for trademark infringement in exchange for all kinds of agreed upon restrictions on the brewery. These included restrictions on the percentage of real estate on packaging and marketing materials using the term “Ravinia,” not organizing musical concerts, and so on.

Now, this might all sound fairly reasonable if you’re not from the area, as I am. But if you are from the Chicagoland area, you will recognize two problems with all of this. First, the term “Ravinia” comes from a formerly incorporated municipality that used to exist on the grounds where the RFA operates. It was the name of a neighborhood, not unlike “Wrigleyville” near Wrigley Field, thereby making it a geographic marker. Geographic markers have historically enjoyed very limited trademark protections, if any at all. The reality is that this trademark probably never should have been granted in the first place. Add to that the simple fact that the area also has other businesses that use the “Ravinia” name, some of which include businesses that serve beer and food, all without objection from the RFA. Despite all of the above, the RFA last year claimed that Ravinia Brewing had violated its agreement and sued for trademark infringement.

At present, this lawsuit is still going. The RFA recently amended its complaint, noting that Ravinia Brewing had transferred its own trademarks for its business name to a company setup in Delaware in order to license the marks back to the local business.

The updated complaint in the federal lawsuit between the music festival and the microbrewery accuses the founders of the brewing company of starting their business with “the express purposes of taking advantage of the name recognition and good will of Ravinia [Festival Association].”

In addition to the Illinois-registered LLCs of Ravinia Brewing Company and Ravinia Brewing Company Chicago, the 11-count amended complaint adds as a defendant Ravinia Brewing IP LLC, a Delaware-based entity incorporated in 2016. According to a joint status report filed earlier this month, attorneys for the music festival only recently learned that the brewing company had assigned trademark rights to the Delaware affiliate.

So that’s the reason for the amended complaint, but most of the facts of the case remain the same. The trademark in question is a geographic marker and the RFA has not policed its mark equitably with respect to other businesses in the area. There is still a great deal of complaining in the suit over font sizes, musical “concerts” put on by the brewery, social media “advertising,” and a beer with a musical-themed brand. There’s a lot of scare quotes in that sentence. Here’s why:

1. The “concerts” put on by the brewery are largely a person with a guitar playing some songs in the bar. These are nothing like the massive concerts put on at Ravinia Festival.
2. The font size issue occurred when there was a change in size and shape of the beer can and the brewery corrected the issue as soon as it was brought to their attention.
3. The new music themed beer was called “Key Notes” and featured a person playing a piano on the can. That both isn’t enough to make this trademark infringement, nor is the beer even sold any longer.
4. The social media “advertising” claim stems from the wife of the owner of the brewery, on her own social media page, posting a picture drinking one of the brewery’s beers while at a concert at Ravinia Festival.

And, again, this is all over a geographic marker trademark that shouldn’t have been granted in the first place. And, in the brewery’s response to the lawsuit, potentially shouldn’t have been granted for other reasons as well.

The brewery contended that the association’s 2011 trademark for exclusive rights to use the “Ravinia” name for “Restaurant Services; Catering Services; Offering Banquet Facilities” was obtained fraudulently, noting that the festival’s finance director signed a sworn declaration that no one else was using the name for restaurants and food — despite the existence of local restaurants like the Ravinia Green Country Club and the Ravinia BBQ and Grill.

The brewery’s attorney, Shelley Smith, said a jury could reasonably determine that a senior Ravinia Festival executive, like its then finance director, could not credibly claim that she was unaware of country club or BBQ joint.

“Thus, when Ravinia Festival filed its trademark application, Ravinia BBQ and Grill had been using the mark ‘Ravinia’ for twenty-five years and Ravinia Green Country Club had been using the mark for forty-three years, all without interference by Ravinia Festival,” Smith said. “It is under these circumstances that Ravinia Festival told the PTO that no one else had the ‘right to use the mark in commerce’ in connection with restaurant services.”

Whether that’s true or not ultimately shouldn’t really matter. The fact is that “Ravinia” is a geographic marker, understood not to be a source of a good or service, but as a reference to a neighborhood. On top of that, the RFA has clearly not policed its trademark against other uses of the term, and is instead singling out Ravinia Brewing Company for this sort of action.

Why the RFA wants to continue with its bullying via this lawsuit is beyond me. It can’t possibly be worth whatever it is paying its lawyers, as there is clearly no threat from a small brewery with a couple of brick and mortar locations.

Alright, this one is going to get a bit convoluted, so stay with me here. There seems to be something going on in the foreign foodstuffs and restaurant industries lately when it comes to trademarking otherwise common phrases for niche foods in a way that pisses off other providers that operate in those same niche markets. An example of that recently came to be in the form of a “chili crunch” trademark granted to David Chang, after which he blasted out a bunch of cease and desists notices. Chang eventually apologized and promised to not enforce his trademark any longer, though that came only after some rather severe public backlash.

And now we have an interesting and somewhat similar situation out of the UK. Dishoom is an Indian restaurant chain that is seeking to revoke a trademark granted to another restaurateur, Tariq Aziz. That trademark is for “Ruby Murray” in the restaurant industry. Dishoom appears to be at least slightly misguided in its petition, in that it claimed that Aziz was not using the mark in commerce. He absolutely is, having a restaurant named Ruby Murray in London.

The restaurant group’s lawyers want the term to be revoked as a trademarked phrase because they believe it has never been used for commercial purposes.

A spokesperson for Dishoom said: ‘A third party has a trademark registration for Ruby Murray and we don’t believe that they have ever used it.

However, Aziz reportedly refused the application, claiming that he is using the name for a food premises in Islington and does not want the trademark to be revoked.

He said: ‘We have a premises in Islington, north London, called Ruby Murray. It’s closed for refurbishment at the moment, but will reopen soon’.

That certainly appears to be true, unless this website for the Ruby Murray restaurant in London is somehow wholly made up, which I doubt. If that really is the sole reason that Dishoom is seeking to invalidate the trademark, it seems unlikely to work.

Which doesn’t mean that canceling the mark isn’t something that shouldn’t absolutely be considered. Why? Well, it has to do with how the name Ruby Murray became associated with Indian food to begin with.

See, Ruby Murray is the name of a British musician from the 1950s. She was wildly popular at that time throughout the UK and elsewhere. And, in keeping with one of my favorite parts of British slang, where you refer to one thing by the name of a completely different thing that rhymes with the original thing, Ruby Murray’s name became a slang term in the 60s for Indian curry.

So, what Aziz actually did was to trademark a common, generic slang term for a common ingredient in Indian food that was also the name of a very famous person. That would seem to raise all kinds of potential problems for the mark and I would argue it never should have been granted. Its obviously considered a generic term, or you would have thought Murray’s heirs or estate would have challenged the mark themselves.

We’ll see if Aziz truly wants to defend this trademark, as he has until July 15th to state so. It would be better if this all went away and everyone just got back to making awesome Indian food.

It’s been nearly a year, but I won’t pretend that the outcome of this isn’t quite satisfying. Last summer, grocerer Trader Joe’s filed an absolute bullshit lawsuit against the union for its own employees claiming that the name of and merchandise sold by the union represented trademark infringement and would cause confusion with the public as to the source of those goods. The court dismissed that suit in fairly spectacular fashion, taking the company to task for those claims, given how clear the website and merch are that all of this is coming from the union and not the company itself. The ruling made some fairly clear speculation that the company was doing this instead just to make trouble for a union it’s trying to hassle, which is absolutely what it is doing. While the company decided to appeal the ruling, keeping all of its bad actions in the news for even longer, the original ruling judge has now also ordered the company to pay legal fees to the union, given the nature of the company’s lawsuit.

Trader Joe’s must pay more than $100,000 in attorneys’ fees for bringing an “exceptionally weak” trademark lawsuit against its employee union, a California federal judge has determined.

U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera said on Tuesday, opens new tab that Trader Joe’s case was meritless and that “the obvious motivation behind the suit” was to influence the grocery store chain’s fight with Trader Joe’s United over its drive to unionize Trader Joe’s employees.

“Recognizing the extensive and ongoing legal battles over the Union’s organizing efforts at multiple stores, Trader Joe’s claim that it was genuinely concerned about the dilution of its brand resulting from these trivial campaign mugs and buttons cannot be taken seriously,” Vera said.

Chef’s kiss, honestly. Nobody with a couple of braincells to rub together could seriously believe that the motivation behind this legal action was anything other than being a nuisance for the union as part of a larger effort to make its life as difficult as possible. All the other claims over trademark infringement are purely manufactured as part of that motivation. With that in mind, forcing the company to pay the legal fees the union racked up defending itself from this nonsense is absolutely appropriate.

Vera said on Tuesday that the weakness and impropriety of Trader Joe’s case justified ordering the company to pay the union’s attorneys’ fees.

“Employers should be discouraged from bringing meritless claims against unions they are challenging at the ballot box,” Vera said.

As I’ve said before, the bad PR associated with all of this should have been enough to motivate Trader Joe’s to course correct. Instead, it seems like even more pressure on the company from the public and courts is required.

We’ve had plenty of posts discussing all manner of behavior from the Los Angeles Police Dept. and/or the LAPD union here at Techdirt. As you might imagine if you’re a regular reader here, the majority of those posts haven’t exactly involved fawning praise for these supposed crimefighters. In fact, if you went on a reading blitz of those posts, you might even come away thinking, “You know what? Fuck the LAPD!”

Well, if you wanted to display your sentiments while you went about your day, you might go over to the Cola Corporation’s website to buy one particular shirt it had on offer there before they completely sold out.

Now, it’s not uncommon for misguided entities to issue intellectual property threat letters over t-shirts and apparel, even when it is of the sort that is obviously fair use. Given that, you might have thought it would be the Los Angeles Lakers that sent a nastygram to Cola Corp. After all, the logo in question is clearly a parody of the LA Lakers logo.

Nope!

It was the Los Angeles Police Foundation via its IMG representatives. The LAPF is something of a shadow financier of the LAPD for equipment, including all manner of tech and gear. We have no idea how an entertainment agency like IMG got in bed with these assbags, but it was IMG sending the threat letter you can see below, chock full of all kinds of claims to rights that the LAPF absolutely does not and could not have.

If you can’t see that, it’s a letter sent by Andrew Schmidt, who represents himself as the Senior Counsel to IMG Worldwide, saying:

RE: Request to Remove Infringing Material From www.thecolacorporation.com
Dear Sir/Madam:

I am writing on behalf of IMG Worldwide, LLC (“IMG”), IMG is the authorized representative of Los Angeles Police Foundation CLAPF) LAPF is one of two exclusive holders of intellectual property rights pertaining to trademarks, copyrights and other licensed indicia for (a) the Los Angeles Police Department Badge; (b) the Los Angeles Police Department Uniform; (c) the LAPD motto “To Protect and Serve”; and (d) the word “LAPD” as an acronym/abbreviation for the Los Angeles Police Department (collectively, the “LAPD IP”). Through extensive advertising, promotion and the substantial sale of a full range of licensed products embodying and pertaining to the LAPD IP, the LAPD IP has become famous throughout the world; and as such, carries immeasurable value to LAPF.

We are writing to you regarding an unauthorized use of the LAPD IP on products being sold on your website, www.thecolacorporation.com (the “Infringing Product”). The website URL and description for the Infringing Product is as follows:
https://www.thecolacorporation.com/products fack-the- lupd pos-1&sid=435934961&&variant=48461787234611 FUCK THE LAPD
For the avoidance of doubt, the aforementioned Infringing Product and the image associated therewith are in no way authorized or approved by LAPF or any of its duly authorized representatives.

This letter hereby serves as a statement that:

1. The aforementioned Infringing Product and the image associated therewith violate LAPF’s rights in the LAPD IP
2. These exclusive rights in and to the LAPD IP are being violated by the sale of the Infringing Product on your website at the URL mentioned above;
3. [Contact info omitted]
4. On information and belief, the use of the LAPD IP on the Infringing Products is not authorized by LAPF, LAPF’s authorized agents or representatives or the law.
5. Under penalty of perjury, I hereby state that the above information is accurate and I am duly authorized to act on on behalf of the rights holder of the intellectual. property at issue I hereby request that you remove or disable access the above-mentioned materials and their corresponding URL’s as they appear on your services in as expedient a manner as possible.
   

So, where to begin? For starters, note how the letter breezily asserts copyright, trademark, and “other licensed indicia” without ever going into detail as to what it thinks it actually holds the rights to? That’s an “indicia” of a legal threat that is bloviating, with nothing to back it up. If you know what rights you have, you clearly state them. This letter does not.

If it’s a copyright play that the LAPF is trying to make, it’s going to go absolutely nowhere. The use is made for the purposes of parody and political commentary. It’s clearly fair use, and there are plenty of precedents to back that up. Second, what exactly is the copyright claim here? It’s not the logo. Again, if anything, that would be the Lakers’ claim to make. The only thing possibly related to the LAPD would be those letters: LAPD. And, no, the LAPD does not get to copyright the letters LAPD.

If it’s a trademark play instead, well, that might actually work even less for the LAPF, for any number of reasons. Again, this is parody and political commentary: both First Amendment rights that trump trademarks. More importantly, in trademark you have the question of the likelihood of confusion. We’re fairly sure the LAPF doesn’t want to make the case that the public would be confused into thinking that the Los Angeles Police Foundation was an organization that is putting out a “Fuck the LAPD” t-shirt. Finally, for there to be a trademark, there has to be a use in commerce. Is the LAPF selling “Fuck the LAPD” t-shirts? Doubtful.

But that’s all sort of besides the point, because the LAPF doesn’t have the rights IMG asserted in its letter. Again, the only possible claim that the LAPF can make here is that it has ownership to the letters LAPD. And it does not. Beyond the fact that it had no “creative” input into LAPD, the LAPD is a city’s law enforcement agency and you cannot copyright or trademark such a thing. And, as we’ve discussed multiple times in the past, government agencies don’t get to claim IP on their agency names. The only restrictions they can present are on deceptive uses of logos/seals/etc.

But that is clearly not the case here. And we already have some examples from a decade ago of government agencies demanding the removal of parody logos and… it not ending very well for the government. 

So, what is actually happening here is that the LAPF/LAPD (via IMG) is pretending it has the right to screw with private citizens in ways it absolutely does not, and is using those false rights to harass those private persons with threatening behavior to intimidate them into doing what the LAPF wants. Which, if I’m being totally honest here, is certainly on brand as roughly the most police-y thing it could do in response to a simple t-shirt that is no longer even for sale.

Now, you might imagine that the Cola Corporation’s own legal team would reply to the silly threat letter outlining all of the above, crafting a careful and articulate narrative responding to all the points raised by the LAPF, and ensuring that their full legal skills were on display.

Instead, the company brought on former Techdirt podcast guest, lawyer Mike Dunford, who crafted something that is ultimately even better.

If you can’t read that, you’re not missing much. It says:

Andrew,

Lol, no.

Sincerely,
Mike Dunford

Perfect. No notes. May it go down in history alongside Arkell v. Pressdam, or the infamous Cleveland Browns response to a fan complaining about paper airplanes, as the perfect way to respond to absolutely ridiculous legal threat letters.

For what it’s worth, Dunford’s boss, Akiva Cohen, noted that this letter was “a fun one to edit.” We can only imagine.

This was a fun one to edit

[image or embed]

— AkivaMCohen (@akivamcohen.bsky.social) Apr 18, 2024 at 2:47 PM

We’ve had plenty of posts discussing all manner of behavior from the Los Angeles Police Dept. and/or the LAPD union here at Techdirt. As you might imagine if you’re a regular reader here, the majority of those posts haven’t exactly involved fawning praise for these supposed crimefighters. In fact, if you went on a reading blitz of those posts, you might even come away thinking, “You know what? Fuck the LAPD!”

Well, if you wanted to display your sentiments while you went about your day, you might go over to the Cola Corporation’s website to buy one particular shirt it had on offer there before they completely sold out.

Now, it’s not uncommon for misguided entities to issue intellectual property threat letters over t-shirts and apparel, even when it is of the sort that is obviously fair use. Given that, you might have thought it would be the Los Angeles Lakers that sent a nastygram to Cola Corp. After all, the logo in question is clearly a parody of the LA Lakers logo.

Nope!

It was the Los Angeles Police Foundation via its IMG representatives. The LAPF is something of a shadow financier of the LAPD for equipment, including all manner of tech and gear. We have no idea how an entertainment agency like IMG got in bed with these assbags, but it was IMG sending the threat letter you can see below, chock full of all kinds of claims to rights that the LAPF absolutely does not and could not have.

If you can’t see that, it’s a letter sent by Andrew Schmidt, who represents himself as the Senior Counsel to IMG Worldwide, saying:

RE: Request to Remove Infringing Material From www.thecolacorporation.com
Dear Sir/Madam:

I am writing on behalf of IMG Worldwide, LLC (“IMG”), IMG is the authorized representative of Los Angeles Police Foundation CLAPF) LAPF is one of two exclusive holders of intellectual property rights pertaining to trademarks, copyrights and other licensed indicia for (a) the Los Angeles Police Department Badge; (b) the Los Angeles Police Department Uniform; (c) the LAPD motto “To Protect and Serve”; and (d) the word “LAPD” as an acronym/abbreviation for the Los Angeles Police Department (collectively, the “LAPD IP”). Through extensive advertising, promotion and the substantial sale of a full range of licensed products embodying and pertaining to the LAPD IP, the LAPD IP has become famous throughout the world; and as such, carries immeasurable value to LAPF.

We are writing to you regarding an unauthorized use of the LAPD IP on products being sold on your website, www.thecolacorporation.com (the “Infringing Product”). The website URL and description for the Infringing Product is as follows:
https://www.thecolacorporation.com/products fack-the- lupd pos-1&sid=435934961&&variant=48461787234611 FUCK THE LAPD
For the avoidance of doubt, the aforementioned Infringing Product and the image associated therewith are in no way authorized or approved by LAPF or any of its duly authorized representatives.

This letter hereby serves as a statement that:

1. The aforementioned Infringing Product and the image associated therewith violate LAPF’s rights in the LAPD IP
2. These exclusive rights in and to the LAPD IP are being violated by the sale of the Infringing Product on your website at the URL mentioned above;
3. [Contact info omitted]
4. On information and belief, the use of the LAPD IP on the Infringing Products is not authorized by LAPF, LAPF’s authorized agents or representatives or the law.
5. Under penalty of perjury, I hereby state that the above information is accurate and I am duly authorized to act on on behalf of the rights holder of the intellectual. property at issue I hereby request that you remove or disable access the above-mentioned materials and their corresponding URL’s as they appear on your services in as expedient a manner as possible.
   

So, where to begin? For starters, note how the letter breezily asserts copyright, trademark, and “other licensed indicia” without ever going into detail as to what it thinks it actually holds the rights to? That’s an “indicia” of a legal threat that is bloviating, with nothing to back it up. If you know what rights you have, you clearly state them. This letter does not.

If it’s a copyright play that the LAPF is trying to make, it’s going to go absolutely nowhere. The use is made for the purposes of parody and political commentary. It’s clearly fair use, and there are plenty of precedents to back that up. Second, what exactly is the copyright claim here? It’s not the logo. Again, if anything, that would be the Lakers’ claim to make. The only thing possibly related to the LAPD would be those letters: LAPD. And, no, the LAPD does not get to copyright the letters LAPD.

If it’s a trademark play instead, well, that might actually work even less for the LAPF, for any number of reasons. Again, this is parody and political commentary: both First Amendment rights that trump trademarks. More importantly, in trademark you have the question of the likelihood of confusion. We’re fairly sure the LAPF doesn’t want to make the case that the public would be confused into thinking that the Los Angeles Police Foundation was an organization that is putting out a “Fuck the LAPD” t-shirt. Finally, for there to be a trademark, there has to be a use in commerce. Is the LAPF selling “Fuck the LAPD” t-shirts? Doubtful.

But that’s all sort of besides the point, because the LAPF doesn’t have the rights IMG asserted in its letter. Again, the only possible claim that the LAPF can make here is that it has ownership to the letters LAPD. And it does not. Beyond the fact that it had no “creative” input into LAPD, the LAPD is a city’s law enforcement agency and you cannot copyright or trademark such a thing. And, as we’ve discussed multiple times in the past, government agencies don’t get to claim IP on their agency names. The only restrictions they can present are on deceptive uses of logos/seals/etc.

But that is clearly not the case here. And we already have some examples from a decade ago of government agencies demanding the removal of parody logos and… it not ending very well for the government. 

So, what is actually happening here is that the LAPF/LAPD (via IMG) is pretending it has the right to screw with private citizens in ways it absolutely does not, and is using those false rights to harass those private persons with threatening behavior to intimidate them into doing what the LAPF wants. Which, if I’m being totally honest here, is certainly on brand as roughly the most police-y thing it could do in response to a simple t-shirt that is no longer even for sale.

Now, you might imagine that the Cola Corporation’s own legal team would reply to the silly threat letter outlining all of the above, crafting a careful and articulate narrative responding to all the points raised by the LAPF, and ensuring that their full legal skills were on display.

Instead, the company brought on former Techdirt podcast guest, lawyer Mike Dunford, who crafted something that is ultimately even better.

If you can’t read that, you’re not missing much. It says:

Andrew,

Lol, no.

Sincerely,
Mike Dunford

Perfect. No notes. May it go down in history alongside Arkell v. Pressdam, or the infamous Cleveland Browns response to a fan complaining about paper airplanes, as the perfect way to respond to absolutely ridiculous legal threat letters.

For what it’s worth, Dunford’s boss, Akiva Cohen, noted that this letter was “a fun one to edit.” We can only imagine.

This was a fun one to edit

[image or embed]

— AkivaMCohen (@akivamcohen.bsky.social) Apr 18, 2024 at 2:47 PM

It’s a point we have to make far more often than we should: trademark law is not designed to allow anyone or any company to simply lock up common language as their own. There are lots of ways the confusion around that expresses itself, but one of the most common concerns generic terms for goods and services. Yes, you can trademark Coca-Cola. No, you cannot trademark “soda.” Yes, you can trademark “Apple” for computers. No, you cannot trademark “apples” for your apple-farming company. See? Not too hard!

For us, at least. For the folks at Snap, however, the point seems to elude them. Snap has a line of augmented reality glasses and has unhelpfully decided to name the product “Spectacles.” When Snap applied for a trademark on the name of the product, the USPTO managed to actually get it right and denied the application over the generic nature of the term.

But rather than slinking away with a sly smile at the failed attempt to get one over on the USPTO, Snap has now sued the USPTO instead.

The USPTO rejected Snap’s trademark application for the name in 2020, finding it trademark-ineligible because it was either generic or descriptive. A USPTO tribunal affirmed the decision later that year. Snap asked the California court in 2022 to force the USPTO to grant the trademark, and said that potential buyers think of “Spectacles” as a Snap brand instead of a generic term for smart glasses.

The USPTO asked the court last year to grant it a win without a trial.

And the court just recently denied the USPTO’s request and is allowing the trial to move forward. Why? I have no real idea. The U.S. Magistrate Judge cited “competing evidence” that needed to be sorted out in an actual trial, but I truly can’t understand what in the world that competing evidence would be. The only specifics in the judge’s order reference surveys and expert testimony as to whether the public associates the term “spectacles” with glasses in general, or with Snap’s product. And I suspect the court is allowing this to go to trial mostly as a procedural result, since the burden at this stage would be on the USPTO to demonstrate that the evidence in the case is one-sided to get a judgement without trial.

And the judge apparently thinks it’s not one-sided enough. So now this goes to trial, where one would hope it ultimately becomes a win for the USPTO.

Usually when you hear the term “trademark bully” tossed around, it’s done so either by members of the media, such as us here at Techdirt, or by defense attorneys making a point before the court. In the case of The Florida Virtual School, however, that moniker was given to the company by the judge that ruled against it in a trademark dispute with another company that offers virtual schooling.

FLVS, as the company commonly goes by, sued an organization called K12 at the time, since rebranded as Stride, for trademark infringement. The two companies initially settled a 2015 trademark suit surrounding the latter’s use of branding for its services as “Florida Virtual Schooling.” Now, I would have argued at the time that such a term is purely descriptive and couldn’t possibly be trademark infringement, but, alas, a settlement was reached so we never got to see a test of that argument in court. But then came the 2020 lawsuit brought by FLVS over equally descriptive terms Stride is using.

The virtual school said it sued again in 2020 because it thought K12 breached that 2015 agreement when it started a virtual program called the Florida Online School with the small Hendry County school district in southwest Florida in 2019. In filing the lawsuit, FLVS noted that K12 was advertising “Florida virtual schooling” on its website, which it viewed as a violation of the previous agreement, and using a blue color scheme similar to the virtual school’s on its website.

The virtual school, Fitch said, is required by law to protect its intellectual property. It filed the 2020 lawsuit “to protect against K12’s repeated infringement on FLVS trademarks, which deliberately blurred the lines between the two organizations and caused confusion for Florida students and families,” she wrote.

Again, this is a purely descriptive mark. It’s not trademark infringement. Despite that, FLVS reportedly spent well over $2 million to bring the suit, all of which ended in defeat for FLVS. And not just defeat, but defeat combined with a scathing rebuke from the judge.

Presnell’s ruling in Stride’s favor in January came just after the case hit the three-year mark. He called the virtual school’s claims “feeble” in his order and wrote that the school, sometimes called by its acronym FLVS, had presented “no credible evidence” that K12 infringed on its trademarks or confused parents looking for virtual classes for their children, as it alleged.

Instead, Florida’s virtual school behaved like a “trademark bully” in pursuing the case, he added.

It’s nice to see the court call out the behavior of a trademark bully for what it is: trademark bullying. And, after $2 million plus dollars spent on this nonsense and a beat-down of a judgement in the case, you would have thought that FLVS would have learned its lesson and slinked away.

Instead, the company is going to appeal the ruling and spend even more money on this loser of a case.

The virtual school filed its notice of appeal on Feb. 12 and also asked Presnell to hold off a ruling on Stride’s request for sanctions, which it said “lacks merit.”

It certainly doesn’t lack merit if the lower court’s ruling holds up. The claims made in the original suit are thin to the point of being comical. And, in the case of suits like this being filed when competent attorneys should know better, legal fees ought to absolutely be on the table.

More to the point, I can’t imagine why the continued expense to FLVS to carry on with this nonsense makes even the slightest bit of business sense. Here’s to another scathing ruling in the very near future.