E-cards.com v. Ecards.com

Citation
E-cards.com v. Ecards.com, Civ. A. No 3:99-cv-03726 (N.D. Cal. May 10, 2000)

Trial Court Proceedings
In this dispute between two Internet greeting-card companies, San Francisco-based E-cards.com successfully utilized unfair competition law, not trademark infringement, dilution, or cybersquatting, to obtain a $4 million dollar jury award over Toronto-based Ecards.com. This $4 million award included $2,357,500 for lost business, $690,850 for unjust profits, and $1 million as punitive damages.

On August 2, 2000, the court entered interim injunctive relief ordering defendant to post on its home page (under the welcome banner and in a different color) the following text: “Note--we are not E-Cards, the wildlife/environmental greeting card site. Neither site or company is affiliated with the other.” Several months later, the parties reached a settlement. Defendant agreed to transfer the “ecards.com” domain name to plaintiff, but only after a six-month phase-out period in which “ecards.com” would redirect users to defendant’s new website located at “blab.com.”

Source
This page uses content from Finnegan’s Internet Trademark Case Summaries. This [http://www.finnegan.com/e-cardscomvecardscom/ entry] is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).