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AI Startup Perplexity Sued For Alleged Trademark Infringement
Perplexity, the venture-backed startup building AI-powered search products, has actually been taken legal action against in federal court for supposedly breaching another company’s trademark.
In a complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, lawyers representing a business called Perplexity Solved Solutions implicate Perplexity of infringing on its trademark rights by utilizing the brand “Perplexity.”
Perplexity Solved Solutions, a Plano, Texas-based company founded in 2017, applied to register the Perplexity hallmark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in October 2021, according to the complaint.
Perplexity Solved Solutions mostly offers HR and workplace partnership software, consisting of a combined control panel for HR analytics and a videoconferencing tool called Perplexity Meet. The business secured a hallmark registration by November 2022 and started promoting items on its site, perplexityonline.com, a domain that Perplexity Solved Solutions had actually registered in 2021.
Perplexity and counsel for Perplexity Solved Solutions did not respond as of press time. TechCrunch will upgrade the post if either celebration remarks.
The Texas business declares that AI start-up Perplexity began infringing on its hallmark “in or around” August 2022 to promote its AI-powered search engine. The month prior – July 2022 – Perplexity had registered the domain perplexity.ai, which the complaint likewise alleges is violation.
“The [Perplexity] site presently situated at the infringing domain name prominently features the Perplexity [trademark],” the complaint reads,” [and] the infringing products and services are extremely comparable to those provided by Perplexity [Solved Solutions] and attract a similar customer base. For example, Perplexity [Solved Solutions’] ‘Perplexity Meet’ and offender’s ‘Perplexity Spaces’ both are software application platforms that assist in interaction and cooperation among coworkers in companies and other organizations.”
Perplexity Spaces, which the San Francisco-based AI start-up introduced for business clients in October, are hubs with a customizable AI assistant and adapters to third-party platforms, apps, and file systems.
The complaint alleges that Perplexity has actually “saturated the market” with its infringing branding, consisting of marketing across its different social media accounts. The AI startup decreased to buy the in September 2023 when used, per the complaint, and instead chose to declare its own hallmark with the USPTO, which is still pending.
According to the grievance, Perplexity didn’t comply with a cease and desist letter from Perplexity Solved Solutions’ counsel, and it hasn’t withdrawn its pending hallmark application – regardless of efforts to oppose the application before the USPTO’s trial and appeal board.
Attorneys for Perplexity Solved Solutions say that Perplexity’s usage of its trademark is most likely to sow confusion.
“In fact, upon details and belief, consumers currently have been puzzled,” the complaint checks out. “For instance, on numerous occasions, social networks users have actually ‘tagged’ Perplexity in their posts about defendant’s infringing goods and services.”
The grievance alleges that Perplexity’s conduct breaches laws, including the Lanham Act – the U.S. federal law that controls trademarks and unfair competition. To name a few types of legal relief, Perplexity Solved Solutions is seeking to bar Perplexity from utilizing its trademark, in addition to the hallmark “Perplexity AI,” pay damages, and transfer ownership of any domains that consist of Perplexity branding.
It’s the most current courtroom headache for Perplexity, which is presently fighting a claim submitted by News Corp’s Dow Jones and the NY Post over what the complainants explain as a “content kleptocracy.” Many other news websites have actually expressed concerns that Perplexity closely reproduces their content – just last October, The New York Times sent out the start-up a cease and desist letter.
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