Battle over Uber name reaches US district court
A cloud computing company called Uber has asked the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida to enjoin taxi-hailing company Uber (Uber Tech) from using the Uber name, claiming it infringes its trademark.
Uber Operations, which has provided IT services to the healthcare industry since its foundation in 2004, claimed that the taxi-hailing company had caused confusion among customers, in a complaint filed on Tuesday, August 29.
“Although Uber Operations and Uber Tech are not direct competitors, the ubiquitousness of Uber Tech’s mark is such that it has saturated the market and overwhelmed Uber Operations’ mark,” the claim stated.
It further claimed that Uber Tech’s reported move into healthcare, “which has been discussed publicly”, is problematic for the company.
According to the claim, Uber Operations was founded in 2004 and has been in continuous existence since.
Uber Tech was founded in 2009.
Uber Operations owns several domain names including uberops.com and uberoperations.com. It registered US trademark number 4,173,895 in 2012 in relation to “advisory services in the field of product development and quality improvement”.
Uber Operations also owns a variety of other trademarks including UberXchange and UberMover, which have been registered since 2012.
Taxi company Uber registered its trademark in 2011, US registration number 3977893, in relation to “computer software for coordinating transportation services”, according to the claim.
Uber Operations further stated that it had received death threats intended for Uber Tech and its drivers, and had “lost time and productivity” in passing these on to law enforcement.
As well as a preliminary and/or permanent injunction, the company is also seeking a transfer of profits, attorneys’ fees and a jury trial.
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