Two suits filed in Canada allege the complaint site violates the airline's copyright, trademarks and privacy of senior airline employees. United says in one of the suits it is not trying to prevent the site's owner, Jeremy Cooperstock, from operating a website where people can express their views about United, but instead is trying to protect its intellectual property, such as its logo.
Without having read UA's filed complaint I'm cautiously sympathetic. When you own trademarks you have to be pretty aggressive in protecting them.
That being said, the untied.com guy seems like he is pretty ineffective in effecting change at the company. Is he just trying to have fun with them? If he really wanted to make their lives hard, he'd redirect his "comment successfully submitted" page to the DoT Web form (or just submit users' feedback as a third party on their behalf via that form). That would be a pretty mean thing for him to do to UA Corporate.
Wow! Literally last week I brought up the question with some friends of why in the world UA allows untied.com to use their likeness. We all agreed that it was probably because UA is too cheap for the legal fees. Guess they showed us!
They should go after Fox for the madtv tulip sketches while they are at it
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The individuals listed on untied.com are not public figures per-se, so there is some merit asking him to take them down.
As far as the trademark issue goes, the question is "will a reasonable person mistake the information presented as belonging to the trademark owner." That's iffy I think. Where the owner really goes wrong is having a website name so close united that people will surf there accidentally.
Recorded Entry information
Court Number Style of Cause Nature of Proceeding 'RE'
T-2084-12 UNITED AIR LINES INC ET AL v. JEREMY COOPERSTOCK Patent Infringement
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:
Name Number
GLOBE DESIGN 492886
UNITED 204456
UNITED AIRLINES 367179
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Quote:
Originally Posted by XLR26
I wonder what the tipping point was for UA to decide to file suit after all this time.
Probably that the website was recently changed to look like the new United website. In my non-legal opinion, that implies a specific intent, and I think United might have some justification based on that.
__________________
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Only thing I can think of is the legal team is now run by cowboys from Texas.
I think it has to do with the site's (somewhat recent?) redesign, which now mimics united.com.
I notice there is a disclaimer when you submit a complaint that this isn't going to UA, but it still seems like a large number of the complaints on the site are from people who think they are either sending it to UA or someone who can help (and accordingly include all sorts of personal details).
I think it has to do with the site's (somewhat recent?) redesign, which now mimics united.com.
I notice there is a disclaimer when you submit a complaint that this isn't going to UA, but it still seems like a large number of the complaints on the site are from people who think they are either sending it to UA or someone who can help (and accordingly include all sorts of personal details).
Yup. It is quite clear from the content this guy posts online that people seem to think they are writing to United, so there is real evidence of confusion.
As they say in American jurisprudence, a "moron in a hurry" might end up writing on untied.com instead of writing a complaint to UA customer relations.
Just to pick a random example -- does anyone really think that this person meant to be writing on passenger complaint site untied.com and not to the airline directly?:
Quote:
I am writing to you to file a complaint and request a partial refund on a recent trip to Hawaii. The date was 10/09/12 and we were to fly out of LAX, flight UA1733, at 3:00pm headed to OGG(Maui) to arrive at 5:37pm (Maui time). Instead there was a mechanical failure on the plane we were to take and it was stuck in Honolulu. There was a 12 hour delay. We did not leave LAX until 12:30am and did not get to our hotel until 4:30am(Maui time). We were to check in to our hotel, the Marrriot Resort and Spa on 10/09/12 and did not arrive until 4:30 am on 10/10/12, so we had to pay for a night of stay,$430.00 a night, and we were not even there because of your delay, plus an extra $50.00 for a late check in for holding the room. You also lost our luggage and we did not receive it until 6:30 pm on 10/10/12. So, we lost a whole day of our vacation, paid for a hotel room we did not even use and also paid for an extra day of the car rental we were not using!! I would like a refund of our hotel bill for the night we were not there 10/09/12, the car rental fee for one day we did not use and some damages for losing an entire day of our vacation, with no sleep and no clothes!! My husband and I were traveling together and our ticket #s were (1671314432620) and (1671314432653).
Like others have said, methinks it was the site redesign. I hadn't visited in quite awhile, but was shocked when I just went to the site.
Since as far back as I can remember, Untied.com has generally followed the design of United.com. There has presumably been lag time between the various redesigns of United.com and corresponding changes to Untied.com, but it is not like this is the first time the two sites looked similar.
Since as far back as I can remember, Untied.com has generally followed the design of United.com. There has presumably been lag time between the various redesigns of United.com and corresponding changes to Untied.com, but it is not like this is the first time the two sites looked similar.
I looked at the Wayback Machine, and even before the old PMUA website was taken offline, it didn't look similar (at least from 2009-2011).
