Press Releases

CHICAGO — On January 27th, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco lifted the stay of and reinstated the November 1999 preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge in Los Angeles at the request of GoTo.com, Inc. (Nasdaq:GOTO) against The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) and other related companies. The appellate court also said that it will issue an opinion soon.

The November 1999 preliminary injunction order by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr. stated that "The Court finds that Plaintiff has demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that Defendants' use of the Go.com design mark for the Go Network has caused, and is likely to continue causing, confusion among consumers... and that as a result of this confusion, Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm..." The preliminary injunction requires Disney and the other defendants to remove the Go.com logo from their Internet sites and from other media such as Disney’s ABC and ESPN television networks.

"We are extremely pleased about this ruling," said David Fleming, a lawyer with Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione in Chicago and lead trademark litigation counsel for GoTo.  "GoTo.com’s customers, clients and site visitors will be protected from the confusion caused by Disney’s logo."

GoTo.com sued Disney in February 1999, charging that Disney's then newly-launched Go Network had unlawfully adopted a logo that is confusingly similar to the unique logo that GoTo.com has been using since December 1997.

Founded in 1917 in Chicago, Brinks Hofer is one of the largest intellectual property law firms in the country, with offices in San Jose, Calif., Indianapolis, Ind. and Arlington, Va. The firm's attorneys specialize in intellectual property litigation and all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret work, unfair competition and technology and licensing agreements. For four years straight, based on surveys of leading intellectual property practitioners, Managing Intellectual Property Magazine has named Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione the top intellectual property firm in the central United States. In 1999, the first year in which it ranked litigation separately, it named the firm first in both patent and trademark litigation.