Non-TM owner can plead false advertising claim for confusing use of TM it used to own

Desmond v. Taxi Affiliation Services LLC, 2018 WL 4589999, No. 17 C 8326 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 25, 2018)Desmond is the Chapter 7 Trustee for the Bankruptcy Estate of Yellow Cab Affiliation, a former Chicago taxicab affiliation with over 1600 dues-paying members who licensed the design mark from YCA. He sued a bunch of defendants for allegedly engaging in a scheme to render YCA insolvent, so that it could not pay its creditors, and then establishing a new company that appropriated YCA’s valuable trade dress. After a passenger was injured in a taxi and sued YCA as a defendant, some of the defendants here allegedly established defendant TAS to prevent creditors from reaching YCA’s assets. For example, TAS collected and retained all payments from YCA members pursuant to their affiliation agreements with YCA, then transferred some of that money, disguised as “management fees” and “referral fees,” to YCA’s officers and directors; some defendants…

Read more detail on Recent Advertising Law posts –

This entry was posted in Advertising Law and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply