Wallet Provider Blockchain Sues Crypto Startup Days Before ICO

Luxembourg-based cryptocurrency wallet provider Blockchain has filed a lawsuit against a startup with a similar name, the company announced Thursday.

The complaint specifically states that "Blockchain does not claim exclusive rights to the word 'blockchain' to describe the technology underlying cryptocurrencies ...Rather, it claims exclusive rights in the BLOCKCHAIN marks, which it has been using exclusively for its Blockchain Products and which have become well and favorably known to consumers throughout the United States and the world as identifying its highly regarded and secure services."

It goes on to note that "In 2018, after years of doing business under different trademarks, Paymium adopted the mark BLOCKCHAIN.IO in a blatant and bad faith attempt to capitalize on the valuable and trusted BLOCKCHAIN marks and to confuse consumers into believing Paymium's inferior services emanate from or are otherwise associated with Blockchain."

"Paymium's digital currency services are identical or nearly identical to Blockchain's Digital Wallet Services, Mobile App Services and Website Services, which allow consumers to exchange one form of digital currency for another, such as bitcoin for ether or bitcoin cash," the suit continued.

Blockchain.io has denied the claim, with founder Pierre Noizat telling CoinDesk that "We find it strange that Blockchain Luxembourg filed a claim just [six] days before our public token sale when they had [six] years to contact us regarding our domain name if they had issues with it."

"Generic terms are not generally trademarks because they do not identify [a] source. They generically refer to a thing or service. It looks like the plaintiff is trying to show that it is using its design mark as a source identifier for digital wallet services, as something not generic to blockchain, even though they are wallets for holding blockchain currency," he explained.

"Their use of the word blockchain isn't really protected under U.S. Trademark law ... Perhaps because they couldn't get protection for the word, they filed a"design mark" - "blockchain" in all capital letters with a picture next to it.

Healy noted that Blockchain disclaimed the term, saying "No claim is made to the exclusive right to use BLOCKCHAIN apart from the mark as shown."

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.