Three years ago, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility, alleging that Motorola Mobility’s Moto X line of smartwatches infringed on the trademark “TMOID.”
Moto X watches had a touchscreen display that had the Motorola name on it, and they were sold in the U!
The FTC’s complaint claimed that Motorola’s MotoX smartwalls infringed the trademark because they did not have a TMO ID sticker on the back of the watch.
The watch had a Motorola logo on it and the Motorola logo would only appear on Motorola watches that were compatible with Moto X. Motorola’s response to the complaint was a short, but not-so-subtle hint that it would fight the case in court.
The FTC said that Motorola had been using the “T-Mobile” brand for its TMOIDs since 2010, and that Motorola was in the process of updating the TMO IDs on all its watches.
But Motorola’s response said that it was unaware of the existence of the trademark and would not change its trademark.
In the wake of the FTC’s suit, the brand was taken off the Moto Xs shelves in stores.
This month, the FTC filed a new lawsuit against Samsung for allegedly infringing on Motorola’s trademark on the “MobileTower” brand.
Samsung says that it uses the word “Mobile” on its watch face to indicate that it has LTE, not a phone line, and says that the “mobile” part of the name is an abbreviation for “mobile device.”
“Samsung does not use the word ‘Mobile’ on its mobile tower products and does not indicate that its MobileTower watch face is a mobile device, and it has never claimed to be in the business of making or selling mobile devices,” the FTC said in its complaint.
On Monday, Samsung released a statement that said it “does not believe that the name MobileTowers’ is an ‘official’ mark of Samsung, or that the watch is Samsung-branded.”
The watch is still on sale, but the company says that a court decision will determine whether Samsung will be able to continue to market the watch and to license it.
