Seattle Trademark Lawyer

On July 16, Cascade Financial Corp. and Cascade Bank filed suit in the Western District against Issaquah Community Bank, Capitol Bankcorp., Ltd., and Robert Ittes, over defendants’ alleged plan to use the infringing mark, ISSAQUAH COMMUNITY BANK.

Cascade alleges that Mr. Ittes founded Issaquah Bank in 1992. Issaquah Bank opened its second branch in 1997. Thereafter, it registered the domain names issaquah-bank.com and issaquahbank.com. It also obtained a Washington trademark registration for ISSAQUAH BANK, together with its logo and the tagline, “Your Community Bank.”

Cascade states it is a community bank that offers a full range of financial services to business and consumer clients through its twenty branches located throughout King and Snohomish Counties, and through its website, www.cascadebank.com. 

Cascade alleges it acquired Issaquah Bank in 2004. After the merger, it claims Issaquah Bank operated as the “Issaquah Bank Division of Cascade Bank,” with Mr. Ittes serving as its president. In April 2005, Mr. Ittes left Issaquah Bank Division of Cascade Bank. Cascade claims, on information and belief, that defendants now intend to start a new bank using the ISSAQUAH COMMUNITY BANK name and mark. Cascade believes the new bank will offer substantially the same services and will directly compete with Cascade. It alleges that consumers will be confused between the parties’ names and marks.

Defendants have not yet answered the complaint.

The case cite is Cascade Financial Corp. v. Issaquah Community Bank, No. 07-1106 (W.D. Wash.).

As a local story, this is a reach. But I went to school in Minnesota, so I was interested to read in the Star Tribune that a Colorado jury last week found the large Minnesota co-op Land O’Lakes had infringed a Fort Collins-based animal feed maker’s PROFILE trademark. In doing so, the jury awarded plaintiff Cache La Poudre Feeds $500,000 in actual damages and $14.6 million in profits it found Land O’Lakes had received under the mark. (The jury’s verdict form is here.)

The media rightly characterized the case as one of “David and Goliath.” Cache is family-owned and operated, with four to eight employees. By contrast, Land O’Lakes is owned by 7,000 dairy farmers and 1,200 community cooperatives. Last year, it had 8,500 employees and revenues of $7.27 billion.

The Denver Post reported that Cache had used PROFILE regionally since 1992 in connection with several goods, including a “show feed used by ranchers trying to produce grand-champion steers, lambs and pigs.” Cache claimed in 2002, a Land O’Lakes subsidiary launched a nationwide marketing campaign “consolidating and re-branding” 400 of its animal feed products under an identical mark.

The jury sided with Cache, finding that Land O’Lakes had acted “willingly and with bad faith” in infringing Cache’s mark.

Land O’Lakes has attempted to minimize the award as being “advisory,” stating the judge will have the final say.

On a related note, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal covered the story under the headline “Land O’Lakes fined $15.2M in copyright suit.” Besides being a trademark (not a copyright) dispute, and the fact the jury awarded damages (not a fine), the article actually wasn’t that bad.

The case cite is Cache La Poudre Feed, LLC v. Land O’Lakes, Inc., No. 04-00329 (D. Col.).

STL recently reported on a local band name case: the Wailers of Tacoma versus the Wailers of Jamaica. Yesterday, Tacoma’s News Tribune published a column on the controversy.

A copy of plaintiffs’ complaint is here.  Defendants have not yet answered.

The case cite is Ormsby v. Barrett, No. 07-5305 (W.D. Wash.).

Plaintiff Northstar Neuroscience, Inc., and defendant Neuronetics, Inc., appear to have settled their trademark dispute over the mark NEUROSTAR. This is based on the Stipulation of Dismissal the parties jointly filed in the Western District today.

Northstar filed its complaint against Neuronetics on March 7, alleging trademark infringement, false designation of origin, cancellation of trademark registration, and common law infringement and unfair competition. The dispute arose out of Neuronetics’ use of the marks NEUROSTAR, NEUROSTAR TMS THERAPY, NEUROSTAR and Design, and NEUROSTAR TMS THERAPY and Design in connection with medical devices used to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders. Northstar had alleged those marks infringed Northstar’s prior rights to NORTHSTAR NEUROSCIENCE, which Northstar also uses in connection with neurostimulation therapies for people suffering from stroke and other neurological diseases and disorders.

Terms of the apparent settlement are not known — to STL, at least. The case has not yet been dismissed, but it will be as soon as Western District Judge John Coughenour signs the stipulated order.

The case cite is Northstar Neuroscience, Inc. v. Neuronetics, Inc., No. 07-0351 (W.D. Wash.).

The Chicago IP Litigation Blog has a nice tradition of welcoming new judges to the federal bench. I’m going to extend that tradition west to Seattle. Therefore, without further ado, STL congratulates longtime Shelton, Wash., attorney Benjamin H. Settle (pictured right) for becoming the Western District’s sixth full-time judge. On July 8, he filled the Tacoma-based vacancy left by Judge Franklin D. Burgess when Judge Burgess assumed senior status.

President Bush nominated Mr. Settle for the judgeship on Jan. 9 after a previous nomination lapsed at the end of the last Congress. The Senate confirmed him on June 28 with a 99-0 vote with one senator not voting.

“It must have just come at the right time,” he told The Olympian daily newspaper of Olympia, Wash. “I had been practicing in Shelton for 28 1/2 years at the time I applied. I was approaching 60 and had an opportunity to do something quite different than I had, and it would be challenging.”

Mr. Settle was backed by Washington’s former Senator Slade Gorton, who wrote a letter of recommendation on his behalf. Sen. Gorton wrote that Mr. Settle is “highly ethical, and highly competent, exactly the kind of person that I think is totally qualified to be a U.S. District Court judge.”

As an attorney, Mr. Settle practiced corporate and government law at Settle & Johnson, a firm he helped found.

Congratulations, Judge Settle!

Photo credit: The Shelton-Mason County Journal