Visa vs. evisa.com In Vegas

wessman writes "In October 2002, Visa (the credit card company) convinced a Las Vegas federal court to prevent the small business JSL Corp. from using the term 'evisa' and the domain 'evisa.com' for its website offering travel, foreign language, and other multilingual applications and services. The court ruled that the website--run by Joe Orr from his apartment-- 'diluted' Visa's trademark, even though the site uses the word 'visa' in its ordinary dictionary definition, not in relation to credit card services. Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping JSL with an appeal. The EFF has a press release available."

EFF is full of it here

[Anonymous Coward]

Visa is not suing JSL because their website "evisa.com" dilutes Visa's trademark. They are suing JSL because their website dilutes Visa's "e-visa.com" trademark. Which Visa owns. Visa owns the trademarks to both E-Visa and to eVisa. Neither of which is in the dictionary, thank you very much.

EFF should be spending its time on a more worthwhile lawsuit. They'll go down in flames on this one: Visa is dead right.

a case perhaps, but a losing one

[dandelion_wine]

Possibility for confusion is the test, but I'll never understand why a jury system is suitable for criminal offences (entailing possible deprivation of liberty -- very serious stuff) and not suitable for trademark issues. If confusion is the test, why not have a dozen or more impartial people decide if they would be confused? Have all the usual jury safeguards -- each side able to object to a certain number of candidates to get as unbiased a sample as possible, and go from there.

Personally, I'd have to agree with the above poster -- I did originally think electronic Visa, as in the card. But you can't trademark a common word unless it's acquired a secondary meaning linked to the product. This isn't like calling all tissue papers "Kleenex" or all snowmobiles "Skidoo". I'm sure visas (the passport related ones) were around before Visa was, and this business is using the word with a minor adjustment.

Another factor is supposed to be the point of sale. Are visas and Visa transactions done at the same place? No. So the possibility for confusion diminishes yet again.

I think Visa may have a point

[ducomputergeek]

In Europe visa offers the Visa Electron card. I could see where evisa could be confusing to people thinking it had something to do with Visa's online varification system or the Visa Electron card.

Re:Well

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Hmmm. My first thought when I see "evisa.com" is "Oh, another made-up company name." (Avaya, Agilent, etc.) My first thought when I see "eVisa" (or, for that matter, "e-Visa") is "government program to allow people to apply for visas over the net." That it's private rather than government doesn't substantially change that interpretation. If I were looking for visa help, I'd be happy to find a company that could provide it.

And you know, like most Americans, I pay for a good half the shit I buy by credit card -- more like 90% if you count using my debit card as well -- and both my credit and debit cards say "Visa" on them. And yet that is waaay down on the list of things I think of.

I I want to contact Visa over the net, I'll go to visa.com, not evisa.com or e-visa.com or whatever. You wouldn't go to eford.com to look at cars, would you?

I don't know about you guys...

[MoThugz]

but I believe the eVisa.com guy could still be saved. The content [3dtree.com] on the previously-known-as-evisa.com site clearly showcases Passport-related items.

I think the best option for him is to buy the domain ePassport.com (if it's still available).

Doh! I forgot, he will then be sued by MS for 'diluting' MS's cross-site authentication trademark...

I guess he's screwed then... too bad.

Re:EFF is full of it here

[EkiM in De]

From the Whois database
evisa.com : Record created on 27-Aug-1997
e-visa.com: Created on Wed, Apr 22, 1998

evisa.com had been registered just under a year when VISA [visa.com] registered their domain for eVisa (as a product)

A quick search of the US PTO database reveals that VISA did not register their trademark for eVisa and e-Visa until "August 19, 1999".

Though interestingly a search of the wayback machine shows an incarnation of the evisa website [archive.org] from oct 12 1999 (after the eVisa trademark was filed) as a webdesign and e-commerce company, with later additional web directory content. The wayback machine does not have any Visa (as an entry stamp) information as of Sep 25 2001 (its last entry for evisa.com)

Re:Other addresses at risk too

[stratjakt]

The point isnt to win.

What they want is for every time you hear the word 'Visa', you think of their credit card, and not something else.

This means doing everything they can to quash alternate uses of the word.

It's the way the system works, and frankly I'm bored of people getting excited every time something like this happens.

I mean, sure, you could go ahead and open a donut shop called "Radio Shack", but you'd just be asking for it.

juries and judges

[zogger]

--technically, you are entitled to a jury trial for any dispute involving more than 20$. Just another one of those pesky constitutional "theories" that "modern law" ignores in a lot of cases. As to these trademark disputes, it would have to be alleged that somehow someplace someone lost more than 20$. The evisa domain holder could assert that handily. Visa on the other hand would be hard pressed to prove they lost one penny, as evisa doesn't issue credit as a business.

"Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty
dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a
jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than
according to the rules of the common law."

Re:Read the Court Document!

[jko9]

Wrong about the 250k. They at one time offered 90k. See this page [3dtree.com] for history of the domain and case.

JSL has a great attorney (Bradley Booke of Las Vegas), and of course he did point out that the "point" about JSL owning picturebookmaker etc. is absurd. Obviously the domain was chosen for the meaning and not for the little-known trademark it "contains". (Anyone here ever heard of Sony Picturebook or ATT USADIRECT before?) I don't see any evidence that the has judge considered *anything* that JSL's attorney has said.

Boring details about corps: Delaware v. NV. These were two separate corps, both owned 100% by Joe Orr (not anonymously). The tax situation is the same for both states - no taxes paid on income created out of state. I had the Del corp first, and then got the NV corp bc someone told me it was a better idea to have the biz location in NV in case I ever have actual employees, which I would have by now, if I wasn't using all my resources defending the company against this lawsuit. I was told that it was simpler just to get a new corp in NV than to get a license for the Del corp. I've now disbanded the Del corp.

Believe me, in the hands of VISA's lawyers, one single overworked person's bumbling attempts to get his paperwork straight while writing 10,000 lines of code per month can look like some kid of fiendish plot...They also cross examined me in my deposition about dates on my resume...unfortunately for them they couldn't find any discrepancies...

-Joe Orr
JSL