Last Friday in Union County (NJ) Superior Court in Elizabeth, the operator of www.NewWorldCoffeeFraud.com won a solo victory against three sets of lawyers when he convinced the judge not to issue a TRO against his corporate disparagement site.          

New World Coffee a NJ-based coffee and bagel franchise company was represented by
PIPER MARBURY RUDNICK & WOLFE LLP (the Washington DC firm that represented AOL in its anti-spam litigation), RABINOWITZ, TRENK, LUBETKIN & TULLY (a NJ firm), as well as New World Coffee's General Counsel.

The company made a series of claims in seeking a TRO including breach of franchise agreement by franchisees who are supposedly  saying unkind things about it.  It is also claiming that the domain names newworldcoffefraud.com and newworldfraud.com are likely to confuse innocent surfers looking for coffee (dilution).  There was also and Anti-Cybersquatting Act claim. 

The judge didn't seem too concerned about the contract claims but was initially inclined to block the defendant's use of domain names for dilution and cybersquatting. But once the defendant presented a whois list of the hundreds of domain names containing the words "new world" (New World Coffee does not control newworld.com, .org, or .net) she dismissed the cybersquatting argument.  Dilution was thrown out after the defendant argued that all of the cited cases involved domain names that were initially confusing versions of trademarks (jews-for-jesus.org, plannedparenthood.org, etc.)  The judge agreed that even the most casual viewer would not confuse newworldcoffeefraud.com with the trademark holder's site.

The underlying case is still active and plaintiffs are seeking early discovery to see if they can uncover the defendant's sources.  He is defending using the NJ shield law for journalists.

Any New Jersey lawyers interested in the case?

DCF

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"Di-electrical materialism dooms the Ancien Regime, the Treaty of Westphalia, the Communist International, the whole shooting match"