Craigslist Sues Craigstruck, Who Offers To Settle The Lawsuit Over A Football Bet

from the legal-strategy?-meet-marketing-strategy dept

You may recall a couple years ago that when Mojang was facing a trademark battle from Bethesda over the word "scrolls" in a video game title, Mojang's Notch (aka Markus Persson) offered to settle the dispute via a Quake 3 match, rather than in a courtroom. It seems like we've got another such situation here, where the operator of Craigstruck, who has been sued by Craigslist, is offering to settle the dispute via betting on the Seattle Seahawks (Craigstruck is based in Seattle) to beat the San Francisco 49ers later this year. You can see the actual lawsuit, which Criagslist filed back in April. While Craigstruck owner Mike Hanson claims that he has a strong case (and is only doing the bet because it's so expensive to fight a legal battle), I'm not convinced that Craigstruck would prevail in court. While I'm not convinced it should be considered trademark infringement, I could definitely see a court deciding otherwise. Craigstruck is a delivery service that promotes itself as the way to get products bought via Craigslist delivered. While the site is pretty clear that it's not associated with Craigslist, it's not out of the question to suggest that some potential users might be confused (though, I'd argue, very, very few). It also seems a bit odd to focus so much of a business on one key point: that you can deliver stuff bought via Craigslist. Seems limiting to me... which might be why Hanson seems willing to give up the name and everything if the 49ers beat the Seahawks.

Of course, he also recognizes that the Seahawks dominated the 49ers once already this season, and is probably hoping for a repeat in their second matchup. Either way, the chances of Craigslist taking him up on this bet are likely about as close to zero as you can get. Still, he gets points for creativity.

Filed Under: bets, football, trademark
Companies: craigslist, craigstruck