Atari targets print-on-demand ‘counterfeit’ shirts
Atari is suing print-on-demand apparel retailer Pixels.com for infringing a battery of IP rights including trademarks and copyright, claiming it sells “substantial quantities of counterfeit” merchandise.
In a complaint filed yesterday, May 12 at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Atari claims that Pixels is selling t-shirts that illegally reproduce trademarks for games including “Pong” and “Asteroids”.
Pixels allows artists and creators to upload designs for a wide range of products including clothes, phone cases, and home décor items. The resulting products are then listed for sale on Pixels.com and, if purchased, printed on demand by another Pixels site, Fineartamerica.com.
“Using this business model, Pixels is advertising, marketing, creating, displaying, offering for sale, selling, distributing, and profiting from large quantities of counterfeit Atari products,” the Atari suit alleges.
It adds: “Many of the counterfeit products incorporate exact replicas of the registered ‘Atari’ and ‘Pong’ trademarks (name and logo) on products in the classes for which the marks are registered.”
According to the complaint, the Pixel goods have “harmed Atari by cheapening and diluting the Atari brand, diverting profits from the sale of authentic Atari goods, and causing Atari to lose profits and licensing fees from the authorised use of its IP”.
Included in the complaint are examples of the alleged counterfeits, which Atari claims infringe the copyright and trademarks for arcade game titles such as “Asteroids” and “Breakout”.
The complaint also cites Pixels’ use of certain keywords, such as the “Atari” name, to promote the site on search engines, as well as allowing users to search for Atari-related products on the website itself.
“Because Pixels places a significant amount of online advertisements, when a customer searches for ‘Atari’ (or other Atari-owned trademarks) on a search engine like Google, upon information and belief, the counterfeit items sold by Pixels appear side-by-side in the search results with authentic products,” the complaint said.
Atari is seeking a multi-million dollar damages award, including “statutory damages of no less than $150,000 per registered copyright and no less than $2 million per registered trademark per type of good”.
The plaintiff also wants a permanent injunction barring any further sale of the alleged counterfeits, and an award of all profits earned by Pixels from such sales.
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