At the end of 2010 Wow What Savings, LLC (Waltham, MA) (d/b/a Wow) sued America Online, Inc. (Dulles, VA) in Mass. Superior Court asserting a number of claims related to the parties’ competing services under the trademark WOW.
Plaintiff Wow is an online consolidator, offering special business terms to consumers that Wow negotiates in bulk with retailers and distributors. The complaint alleges that the principal of Wow met with a representative of AOL to explain his business model and propose a commercial relationship only to be rejected by AOL. Several months later AOL launched a competing business also called Wow using the URL <wow.com> (which until that point had been used for World of Warcraft) and contacted businesses who had previously had relationships with the plaintiff.
The verified complaint filed in Superior Court was accompanied by several declarations and a motion for preliminary injunction. For reasons which are not clear, however, the state court complaint (which included tort claims of unjust enrichment, tortious interference, and MA trademark infringement) also included federal trademark infringement and Lanham Act claims. So the defendant did what any defendant would do in this situation, it removed to Federal Court.
If preliminary injunctive relief is important, timing must be important. So why file in state court? Why not file directly in Federal Court and avoid the removal process? Or, if you want to be in state court, why include Federal claims in your complaint? Absent further information, this is not a strategy I would recommend.
Wow What Savings, LLC v. America Online, Inc., (Mass. Superior Court, Middlesex County, Dec. 30, 2010, removed to 11-10050-DPW, D. Mass. Jan. 10, 2011)
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