Airline Says It Owns the Word "Northwest" 7
Freshly Exhumed writes "Northwest Airlines, the major airline whose market branding is being phased out after it was acquired by Delta, charges that it has exclusive ownership of the common, geographically descriptive term northwest. The Minnesota-based airline is going after the operator of a small, Spokane Washington web site that provides tourist information for visitors to the Pacific Northwest. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, '[the site's owner] said he has so far spent more than $4,000 in the past few months to defend his site, and he's looking at thousands more going forward as he faces battles in the U.S., U.K., and Australia.' Presumably the Government of Canada will be the next Northwest target victim, what with their use of the term to name some of their Territories since 1870. I don't suppose Northwest can sue the world's cartographers, geocachers, boy scouts, etc. can they?"
Next: sue Hitchcock from beyond the grave (Score:3, Funny)
They'll have to rename the movie, "North by the Direction Opposite of Southeast".
But, seriously: the tourist site is not technically in the same industry as the airline. It doesn't even offer sales of airline tickets. I thought that you could use similar names as long as the industries were different (e.g. Apple Corps versus Apple Computer). The site has also been up for ten years. They could've sued a lot earlier if it really was an issue.