AT&T v. ATT&T

Citation: AT&T Corp. v. ATT&T, Inc., 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24079 (D. Del. Oct. 31, 2002)

Factual Background
AT&T brought suit for infringement, dilution, and cybersquatting against defendant's use of the name ATT&T and the domain names "attinc.com" and "atttel.com." Earlier the court had granted ATT&T's motion for preliminary injunction and ordered defendant to cancel the domain names and to remove signage at its business bearing the ATT&T name. Defendant failed to comply with the court's order.

Trial Court Proceedings
In this decision, the court granted AT&T's motion for summary judgment on its ACPA claim. Although not dispositive, the PTO's earlier rejection of defendant's trademark application for the mark ATT&T for sales and service of telephones, sewing machines, and vacuum cleaners based on AT&T's marks "raise[d] a presumption of likelihood of confusion."

The court awarded statutory damages of only $2,000 ($1,000 per name) because it was "sympathetic" to defendant's status as a "small business." And the court declined to award attorney's fees or costs. The court noted, however, that if defendant continued to violate the court's orders, it would "not hesitate to award higher damages as well as attorneys' fees and costs."

The court also enjoined defendant from transferring the domain names to any person except AT&T, except that defendant could cancel the names.

This page uses content from Finnegan’s Internet Trademark Case Summaries. This entry is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.