Online Securities Firm Seeks ‘Street’ Justice

THE GROWING LIST of online trademark lawsuits got a new entry last month-one with a couple of new wrinkles.

Web Street Securities, an online securities brokerage based in Deerfield, IL, filed suit against WebStNews.Com Inc., Santa Rosa, CA, alleging that the latter has misappropriated the Web Street trademark with its domain name.

An unusual departure in online trademark cases, the complaint also names Interactive Ideas-WebStNews.Com’s Internet service provider-as a defendant. And it takes a swipe at National Solutions Inc., exclusive registrant of domain names.

The complaint alleges that WebStNews.Com started using the disputed name last summer on a site (www.webstnews.com) devoted to providing investment information and promoting the stock of its advertisers.

Consumers may be confused by the similarity of names and by the fact that both sites are dedicated to investments, the papers continue.

Web Street Securities has been promoting the name since 1996, spending several million dollars in the past year alone, according to the complaint on file at U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. The firm operates through a Web site (www.webstreetsecurities.com).

WebStNews.Com also uses a street-sign image similar to the one used by Web Street Securities, the latter firm alleges.

Relationship Unclear The relationship between the two defendants was unclear at deadline. The complaint states that Interactive Ideas has an ownership interest in WebStNews.Com. However, Interactive Ideas president Neal Weisman wouldn’t confirm that in a phone interview. “We’re only the ISP,” he says of the case.

Executives of WebStNews.Com were unavailable for comment at deadline.

Web Street Securities has filed service-mark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for several variations of the name, according to the complaint.

WebStNews.Com obtained domain name registrations for “webstnews.com” and “webstnews.net” from Network Solutions last July, the papers state. However, an attorney for Web Street Securities argues that National Solutions (which is not a defendant) should not have issued the registration, or many others it has processed.

“My client believes there have been many instances in which National Solutions has issued registrations that infringed on trademarks,” said Kristin J. Achterhof, a partner in the intellectual property department of Chicago law firm Katten Muchin & Zavis.