Pair vs. Pair: Pair The App Is Getting Sued By Pair Networks, The Hosting Company
Summary
Tenthbit is getting sued by pair Networks, a hosting and domain registration company based in Pittsburgh, for trademark infringement. Pair Networks says that it has been policing for the use of its name by Internet-related companies for years now, and cites three different examples in its complaint where courts have ruled in its favor in other trademark infringement cases. For its part, Tenthbit maintains that it is not in the same business as pair Networks — with a consumer mobile app being on the opposite end of the Internet spectrum from offering hosting and domain registration services to websites. “It is axiomatic and commonplace that the same word may be used as a trademark by different parties provided that such use does not create a likelihood of confusion on the part of relevant consumers,” the app makers’ lawyers, Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, write in response to the infringement claims. Pair’s $4.2-million seed funding round, announced on May 1, came from an A-list of angels that included Ashton Kutcher’s A-Grade Ventures, Dave Morin, Paul Buchheit, Founder Collective, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, Michael Birch, Sam Altman, CrunchFund, Tencent, Yuri Milner,Betaworks, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, Harjeet Taggar, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brandee Barker, Brian Pokorny, Elad Gil, and Susan Wu.