A federal judge Thursday rejected a lawsuit filed by a Southwest Florida hospice provider alleging trademark infringement by similarly named Texas abortion-rights organizations.
The Collier County-based non-profit Avow Hospice filed the lawsuit against Avow Foundation for Abortion Access, Inc., Avow, Inc. and Avow PAC, which work on abortion issues in Texas.
Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell said the hospice’s attorney in 2022 asked the abortion-rights organizations to stop using the Avow trademark, after the organizations’ former executive director testified before Congress and a photo of her wearing an Avow mask was posted online.
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The ruling said the hospice contended in the lawsuit that the use of the Avow trademark on the abortion-rights organizations’ website “infringes on plaintiff’s (the hospice’s) trademark rights by confusing the public about the source of defendants’ services and diluting plaintiff’s goodwill.”
But Chappell dismissed the case, saying the hospice had not met a legal test for suing the Texas organizations in Florida, resulting in her not having “jurisdiction.”
She wrote that the “unrefuted reason defendants chose the word ‘avow’ in their rebrand was because the word captured the organization’s ‘ethos and attitude.’ There is no evidence defendants sought to capitalize on plaintiff’s brand and goodwill, to suggest a false association between defendants and plaintiff, or to otherwise harm plaintiff.”
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