Practices
Related Practices
Horvitz & Levy secured the affirmance of an order dismissing plaintiff’s trademark infringement and breach of contract claims.
Plaintiff alleged that Ghost Management Group, LLC dba Weedmaps, in concert with others, secretly operated a website at weedmenu.com in an effort to destroy plaintiff’s competing cannabis marketing business. Plaintiff also alleged that Weedmaps violated a settlement agreement that prohibited Weedmaps from filing a “future opposition” to plaintiff’s registering a logo in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The district court granted Weedmaps’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s second amended complaint and plaintiff appealed.
Weedmaps hired Horvitz & Levy to defend the order on appeal and Horvitz & Levy convinced the Ninth Circuit to affirm. The court held that plaintiff failed to allege sufficient facts to support his conclusory belief that Weedmaps was secretly acting in concert with another company to operate a competing website. The court also held that plaintiff’s allegations that Weedmaps competed with him using an unlawfully similar mark did not support a viable claim for breach of contract.