No Coverage for Trademark Infringement Under Slogan Infringement Coverage
Boler v. Peerless Ins. Co., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163850 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 4, 2015)
In Boler, the Eastern District of California held that there was no coverage for the insured’s alleged trademark infringement under the policy’s slogan infringement coverage.
Boler arose out of an underlying action alleging that the insured infringed upon the third-party claimant’s trademark for its product “SLAM!” in the insured’s marketing of its own competing product, “Grand Slam.” The third-party claimant alleged that it notified the insured of the trademark and asked the insured to cease and desist, but the insured continued to violate the trademark and expanded into new areas protected by the trademark.
While the policy’s insuring agreement included coverage for “personal and advertising injury” arising out of “[i]nfringing upon another’s copyright, trade dress or slogan in your ‘advertisement,’” the policy excluded coverage for “‘[p]ersonal and advertising injury’ arising out of the infringement of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights.”
The court found that the carrier was only contractually obligated to protect the insured in cases involving slogan infringement, and not trademark infringement. Finding no allegations of slogan infringement, the court held that there was no coverage under the policy.
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