Motorola sued over Xoom name

[Matthew DeCarlo]

When Motorola first introduced its Xoom tablet, some folks were worried the handset maker might find itself in a trademark feud with the San Francisco-based money transfer company Xoom Corporation. Those concerns were well founded, as Xoom Corp. has apparently sued Motorola over the name of its new slate.

"To confuse and mislead consumers, Motorola without authorization deliberately and unlawfully appropriated Xoom's trade name and trademark rights," said Xoom Corp. The company was founded in 2001, registered the Xoom.com domain in 2003 and registered a trademark for Xoom on December 14, 2004.

In addition to trademark infringement, Motorola is being sued for false designation of origin, unfair competition, unfair business practices, false advertising, and more. Along with damages, Xoom Corp. is seeking a preliminary injunction against Motorola and it wants the phone giant to abandon the Xoom name.

The suit comes only days after Motorola's device launched through Verizon for $600 with a two-year contract. Features include Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), a 10.1-inch 1280x800 display, a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of built-in storage, front and rear cameras, and 10 hours of juice when browsing over Wi-Fi.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/42605-motorola-sued-over-xoom-name.html

 

[princeton]

They'll lose. You can only trademark a name and a lawsuit can only be successful when the two products can be easily confused. This would be like confusing a mac with a good computer.

(sorry, had to do it )

 

[treeski]

To confuse and mislead consumers, Motorola without authorization deliberately and unlawfully appropriated Xoom's trade name and trademark rights.

Who's confused? I had no idea this other Xoom company even existed.

 

[princeton]

treeski said:

To confuse and mislead consumers, Motorola without authorization deliberately and unlawfully appropriated Xoom's trade name and trademark rights.

Who's confused? I had no idea this other Xoom company even existed.

Seriously. Did some buyer walk into verizon asking to purchase a money transfer company?

 

[Wagan8r]

Princeton said:
They'll lose. You can only trademark a name and a lawsuit can only be successful when the two products can be easily confused. This would be like confusing a mac with a good computer.

(sorry, had to do it )

Oh, snap!

Yeah, payment services and a tablet have very little cross-over. Heck, the tablet Xoom may end up giving Xoom Corp. some free publicity (lawsuit aside).

 

[TrekExpert]

Agreed. I don't think anyone is stupid enough to the get a tablet mixed up with a money transferring service.

 

[mattfrompa]

Who the heck uses Xoom for money transfer?

 

[KG363]

How were they supposed to know. I had never heard of Xoom

 

[bimboy56]

I thought it's two words to make up one? "Motorola Xoom". Unless they named it just Xoom, then oh well. LOL Just being non sense

 

[Sarcasm]

Damn you Motorola, you made me think that you were releasing a tablet version for money transfer. Oh the horror.

 

[Arris]

Hi Xoom corp, It's actually Motorola Xo0m, honest...

 

[taimuraly]

LMAO so they just released this, the Motorola Xoom has been in the news for a long time. Besides the name, they are also suing Motorola for false designation of origin, unfair competition, unfair business practices, false advertising, and more.... Lol

Here's my view on some of those allegations,
False designation of origin - I am sure there are more people who know Motorola than this company, Motorola is surely more globally then their company plus why would Motorola want people to think that the tablet is from a money transferring company and not from a well established multinational, telecommunications company.

Unfair competition - ............. don't see it (seriously don't know how they came up to this assumption). Maybe they mean that people think that because the tablet is associated with Xoom Corp, buying the Motorola Xoom Tablet would give them insight and edge over making financial decisions therefore giving Motorola an unfair advantage over other tablets.

False advertising - Motorola show their product, their Motorola Xoom tablet and nothing about money transferring in their ads. Don't remember any ad where their Motorola Xoom tablet is in a San Francisco-based money transfer company lol

If I was Motorola I would countersue Xoom Corp for trying to associate their company with my anticipated and well-known product (false designation of origin) and getting free publicity and competitive edge over their rivals (unfair competition, unfair business practices, false advertising -think they can all fit here =P)

 

[T77]

Nice and easy way to earn publicity and money..lol