Live! Philadelphia forces local newsletter to change logo

The casino was concerned consumers would confuse the newsletter logo with its own.

US.- Live! Casino Philadelphia has persuaded a local online newsletter to change its logo due to its similarities with its own branding.

Chadds Ford Live is an online newsletter and community forum founded in 2009. Its publisher, Emily Myers, is said to have received a letter from the casino’s owner, The Cordish Companies, in January demanding it change its logo by February 6.

The Cordish Companies‘ legal team argued that the Chadds Ford Live name could be mistakenly believed to be connected to the company because, like its casino brand, it also used the word “Live” in a red italic font.

It said the only major difference was that Chadds Ford Live did not use an exclamation mark.

Cordish trademarked the Live! logo with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2007.

But Paul Gugliuzza, a law professor at Temple University who researches patents, copyrights, and trademarks, said: “There’s a real hurdle to showing there’d be any sort of consumer confusion.

“When you see the word ‘Live’ plastered on the side of a casino, you’re not thinking ‘Oh, that same company is behind this local newsletter’ and vice versa.”

All the same, it appears that Chadds Ford Live complied with the casino’s demand, saying that it could not afford the legal costs to fight its corner.