Green Building Initiative asserts GREEN GLOBES(R) trademark against Green Globe International

Portland-based non-profit coalition, The Green Building Initiative (GBI), filed a complaint for trademark infringement based on Registration Nos. 3,549,714 and 3,549,715 and related claims against California company, Green Globe International (GGI).   The Portland plaintiff certifies environmentally friendly business practices under its “Green Globes” program and alleges that the California defendant has illegally used the trademarked name to operate a certification system for environmentally friendly building design.  Plaintiff claims to have launched its program in 2004.  Defendant’s website claims to have launched its program in 1994 during the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Article here.

USPTO records show several trademarks for GREEN GLOBE(R) and GREEN GLOBES(R) registered to other owners for other goods and services, including food products and environmental services such as ecological restoration.

Germany’s CentroSolar Group achieves remarkably quick result with trademark infringement complaint

Oregon-based Centron Solar has changed its name to Grape Solar, responding fairly quickly to an apparently effective complaint for trademark infringement and related claims filed against it in Arizona District Court by the German CentroSolar Group only about a week ago.  The German plaintiff asserted Registration No. 3,427,031 for the CENTROSOLAR® mark registered to CentroSolar Group.

The complaint alleges five related counts and asks for: (a) a TRO, preliminary injunction and permanent injunction; (b) an order requiring now-Grape Solar to unwind damage to CentroSolar (including notifying its  customers of the issue, delivering labels and other materials to plaintiff to destroy, abandoning its application for a CENTRON SOLAR trademark and transferring http://www.centronsolar.com to plaintiff; and (c) monetary awards.

According to the USPTO website, Grape Solar requested abandonment of its application for CENTRON SOLAR on Oct. 5, 2009 just before announcing its new name, but the centronsolar.com website still leads to Grape Solar as of now.   CentroSolar’s demands will likely be addressed in a settlement agreement resolving the case.

Oregon’s Register-Guard paper has an interesting article on Grape Solar’s president, Ocean Yuan’s approach in responding to the lawsuit.