The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in dismissing a trademark infringement matter below Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a declare, dominated {that a} district court docket “erroneously assumed the veracity” of the defendants’ assertions over the “well-pleaded factual allegations” within the plaintiff’s criticism. Molzan v. Bellagreen Holdings, LLC, Case No. 23-20492 (fifth Cir. Aug. 12, 2024) (Davis, Southwick, Duncan, JJ.)
In 2008, Houston-based chef Bruce Molzan and two companions started the primary of what would grow to be a gaggle of 5 Ruggles Green eating places. In 2016, as a part of a sale of the eating places, Molzan licensed his Ruggles Green logos to Bellagreen Holdings and associated entities (collectively, Bellagreen) and transferred the rugglesgreen.com area title to Bellagreen. Following the sale, Bellagreen modified the title of the eating places from Ruggles Green to Bellagreen.
Molzan filed a criticism towards Bellagreen alleging federal and state trademark infringement, false promoting, unfair competitors, trademark dilution, breach of a 2018 settlement settlement by which Bellagreen agreed to stop utilizing the Ruggles Green trademark, and unjust enrichment. Molzan alleged that he had been unable to considerably cut back the web affiliation of the Bellagreen eating places with him or his Ruggles Green trademark, even after a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) continuing (a non-public, binding arbitration continuing to resolve area title disputes) dominated in Molzan’s favor. Although Bellagreen deleted references to Ruggles Green from its web sites, the “knowledge panels” for Bellagreen continued to trigger confusion in Google searches and Google Map searches for Ruggles, Ruggles Green, and Ruggles Black, even after Molzan requested that Google appropriate the data. Searches for Ruggles on Google Maps and different on-line maps as properly as Houston First Corporation’s web site resulted in outcomes for Bellagreen eating places, one thing Molzan alleged would have occurred solely with the approval and path of Bellagreen.
The district court docket granted Bellagreen’s movement below Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a declare and denied Molzan depart to file a second amended criticism. In granting Bellagreen’s movement to dismiss, the district court docket decided that Molzan didn’t allege any information explaining why Bellagreen would have a connection to any of the third-party web sites or their customers. Molzan appealed.
The Fifth Circuit, reviewing the district court docket’s judgment de novo by accepting all well-pleaded information as true and drawing all affordable inferences in favor of the nonmoving occasion, reversed the dismissals of Molzan’s federal and state trademark infringement claims, Molzan’s federal and state false promoting and unfair competitors claims, and state (however not federal) trademark dilution declare. Because Molzan’s unjust enrichment declare relied on his underlying trademark infringement and unfair competitors claims, the Court reversed the dismissal of this declare as properly. The Court vacated the district court docket’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of extra defendants concerned within the web site design and web promotion for Bellagreen as a result of the district court docket erred in ruling on the deserves of Molzan’s claims towards them prior to ruling on private jurisdiction. The Court additionally vacated the district court docket’s order denying Molzan depart to amend his criticism.
The Fifth Circuit cited particular Molzan allegations that:
aren’t conclusory; fairly, they set up the facial plausibility of Molzan’s trademark infringement claims. Given that the subdomain on the Bellagreen restaurant web site was supported by the rugglesgreen.com area title, and that subdomain redirected to the Bellagreen restaurant web site, it’s facially believable that the Bellagreen Defendants had been utilizing the Ruggles and Ruggles Green logos and that use was creating confusion on the web.
The Fifth Circuit discovered that different factual allegations involving Google and Houston First (to which Bellagreen was answerable for offering data), as properly as responses by Bellagreen to on-line buyer evaluations on Google, Trip Advisor, and Yelp, blurred the strains between Bellagreen and Ruggles Green. These parts additional made it facially believable that Bellagreen was utilizing the Ruggles Green trademark to trigger confusion on the web. Finally, the Court disagreed with the district court docket’s software of provisions of the 2018 settlement settlement, declaring that the 2018 settlement didn’t deal with new infringements.
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