Posted on 02/23/2006 7:19:24 PM PST by wagglebee
A cable television network co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore is facing at least two lawsuits challenging its use of the name Current TV.
A Maryland company is suing in federal court in Cincinnati claiming trademark infringement. Minnesota Public Radio has made a similar complaint in a Minneapolis court.
"This is a straight-forward case of trademark infringement," according to briefs filed last month in U.S. District Court by Current Communications Group of Germantown, Md., a provider of broadband Internet services that relies on a Cincinnati company to help distribute its service.
Current Communications contends that it had registered several variations of "Current" trademarks before Current TV was introduced in April 2005.
Minnesota Public Radio claimed in a suit filed earlier this month that it applied to register "The Current" as a trademark four months before Gore's network changed its name to Current TV.
Gore's company bought Newsworld International, a 24-hour cable network, from Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in May 2004 and had planned to use the name "INdTV" and aim programming at 20-somethings, according to the Cincinnati lawsuit.
Current TV, based in San Francisco, features alternative news and "citizen journalism" pieces, many submitted by amateurs who send in video. According to its web site, viewers contribute about one-third of the station's content.
A message seeking comment from Current TV on the Cincinnati lawsuit was not immediately returned. Earlier, the company issued a statement in response to the MPR lawsuit saying more than 300 U.S. businesses use the word "current" in their name.
"We know of no consumers who confuse us with Minnesota Public Radio, and we can't imagine that anybody ever would," the statement said.
Didn't Al Gore invent cable TV?
They could call it Incredibly Boring TV and comply with truth in advertising.
I heard he invented TV.
Al-Gorzeera TV might have some trouble with Al-Jazeera as well :-)
Sounds like it is no better than the dorks from high school TV clubs who show their programs on local-access stations.
Is anyone watching that channel anyway?
If Gore is infringing on two trademarks, doesn't it follow that one of those two is also infringing on the other?
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
"Minnesota Public Radio claimed in a suit filed earlier this month that it applied to register "The Current" as a trademark four months before Gore's network changed its name to Current TV."
Can anyone explain to me how Minnesota Public Radio is promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts by filing this lawsuit?
I heard he invented Thomas Edison.
Gore has a tv network?
Gore has advertisers?
Sorry, I'm not buying into any of this....BUAHAHAHAHHA!
"Can anyone explain to me how Minnesota Public Radio is promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts by filing this lawsuit?"
The competition for the moonbat viewership is heavy.
It resembles Free Speech TV, which is also at the same "cable access programming for the left-winged retards" sort of caliber.
One night a few months ago, I happend to be flipping around the dial on my DISH Network system and stopped at FSTV, and there were these 4 losers sitting around in a run down house in Indy they were renting, smoking weed. They'd "get in your face" with tight closeup shots to the face as it were with the camera, whining and moaning about weed being illegal.
They did this for about a half hour. At the end one of them begged for donations for the program to continue airing.
It's supposedly a 30 minute a week cable access show on the cable system in Indy.
The production value was pretty much low budget, as one might expect. The production pretty much went to buying weed and munchies.
He and Orville Wright invented Orville's brother Wilbur, and thus began the first airline stewardess.
There is no controlling legal authority, is there????
Al Gore invented the word Current, therefore this law suit should be dropped.
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