Engage Healthcare Comm LLC v. Intellisphere LLC

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit·Decided November 20, 2019·No. 19-1017·Unpublished

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 19-1017

ENGAGE HEALTHCARE COMMUNICATIONS, L.L.C.;

GREENHILL HEALTHCARE COMMUNICATIONS, L.L.C.;

CENTER OF EXCELLENCE MEDIA, L.L.C.,

Appellants

v.

INTELLISPHERE, L.L.C.;

MICHEL J. HENNESSY & ASSOCIATES, INC.;

MICHAEL J. HENNESSY; ARC MESA EDUCATORS, L.L.C.;

JOHN DOES 1-5; JANE DOES 1-5

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (D.C. Civ. No. 3-12-cv-00787)

District Judge: Honorable Freda L. Wolfson

Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

October 25, 2019

BEFORE: GREENAWAY, JR., PORTER, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: November 20, 2019)

OPINION*

*This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent.

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

In this this trademark infringement action between strikingly similar companies separately owned by two brothers, we are asked to review the District Court’s opinion and judgment adjudicating the infringement dispute between them. That Court granted summary judgment to defendants, finding that they did not infringe the alleged trademarks owned by plaintiffs. For the reasons stated below, we will affirm the judgment.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND We rely on the facts the District Court recited in its excellent comprehensive opinion which we therefore do not repeat at length. See Engage Healthcare Commc’ns, LLC v. Intellisphere, LLC, No. 12-0787, slip op. at 2-12 (D.N.J. Nov. 29, 2018). At its core, this is a straightforward trademark dispute. The District Court helpfully summarized the marks at issue with two tables in its opinion. They are as follows:

Plaintiffs’ Marks Defendants’ Marks

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE IN PERSONALIZED MEDICINE IN ONCOLOGY HEMATOLOGY/ONCOLOGY

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE IN HEMATOLOGY/ONCOLOGY

THE ONCOLOGY NURSE ONCNURSE THE ONCOLOGY NURSE APN/PA

Plaintiffs’ Marks Defendants’ Marks VALUE-BASED CANCER CARE VALUE-BASED ONCOLOGY VALUE-BASED ONCOLOGY CARE ONCOLOGY PHARMACY NEWS ONCOLOGY PHARMACY NEWS

CLINICAL ONCOLOGY PHARMACY NEWS

ONCOLOGY PRACTICE ONCOLOGY BUSINESS MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT

AMERICAN HEALTH & DRUG AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BENEFITS PHARMACY BENEFITS

PEER-SPECTIVES PEERS & PERSPECTIVES

TARGETED THERAPIES IN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON HEMATOLOGY/ONCOLOGY TARGETED THERAPIES IN CANCER

TARGETED THERAPIES IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ONCOLOGY TARGETED THERAPIES IN CANCER

TARGETED THERAPIES IN BREAST BIOMARKERS, PATHWAYS, AND CANCER TARGETED THERAPIES

TARGETED THERAPIES IN LUNG TARGETED THERAPY NEWS CANCER

TARGETED THERAPIES IN NONHODGKIN LYMPHOMA

Engage, slip op. at 3-4.

Plaintiffs’ Marks Defendants’ Marks

JOURNAL OF PERSONALIZED PERSONALIZED CANCER CARE MEDICINE IN HEMATOLOGY/ONCOLOGY

PERSONALIZED CANCER CARE

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE IN IMMUNOLOGY

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE IN RHEUMOTOLOGY

PERSONALIZED BREAST CANCER

PERSONALIZED VALUE BASED CANCER CARE

Plaintiffs’ Marks Defendants’ Marks

PERSONALIZED VALUE BASED VALUE -BASED CARDIOLOGY CANCER CARE VALUE-BASED CARDIOLOGY CARE VALUE-BASED BREAST CANCER VALUE-BASED DESIGN

VALUE-BASED CARE IN RHEUMOTOLOGY VALUSE-BASED INSURANCE DESIGN

VALUE-BASED CARE IN MULTIPLE MYELOMA

VALUE-BASED ONCOLOGY BENEFIT DESIGN

TRANSLATING EVIDENCE-BASED RESEARCH INTO VALUE-BASED DECISIONS

INSTITUTE FOR VALUE-BASED MEDICINE

CLINICAL ONCOLOGY PHARMACY N/A

RHEUMATOLOGY BUSINESS N/A MANAGEMENT

DERMATOLOGY BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

DIABETES BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Engage, slip op. at 9-10.

III. DISCUSSION

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1338 and 1367, and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise plenary review of the District Court’s grant of summary judgment and thus consider the issues de novo. See Bradley v. W. Chester Univ. of Pa. State Sys. of Higher Educ., 880 F.3d 643, 650 (3d Cir. 2018). Accordingly, we are applying “the same standard as the District Court to determine whether summary judgment was appropriate.” State Auto Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Pro Design, P.C., 566 F.3d 86, 89 (3d Cir. 2009). “[S]ummary judgment is properly granted ‘if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Sconiers v. United States, 896 F.3d 595, 597 n.3 (3d Cir. 2018) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)).

In granting summary judgment to defendants, the District Court held that (1) none of plaintiffs’ alleged trademarks were enforceable as advertising marks, thus defendants could not have infringed them; (2) all but one of plaintiffs’ trademarks were unenforceable in the online and/or print publication class in the fields of hematology and oncology that they addressed; and (3) defendants did not infringe the lone valid trademark. The District Court also held that (4) plaintiffs’ state-law unfair competition claims failed because under state law, essentially the same standard applied to their unfair competition claims as their federal trademark claims; and (5) the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate plaintiffs’ request for declaratory judgment to invalidate defendants’ alleged trademarks. In view of the District Court’s thorough treatment of the issues and our agreement with its treatment we will affirm its judgment

for substantially the same reasons the District Court articulated in its opinion with one exception which we discuss below. Nevertheless, our rejection of the District Court’s reasoning on that issue does not change our result which affirms its judgment.

A. Advertising Marks We agree with the District Court that plaintiffs’ alleged marks could not be enforced as advertising service marks in this case which at bottom is an argument over advertising. “Under the Lanham Act, service marks, which are used to identify the source of services, are entitled to the same legal protection as trademarks, which are used to identify the source of goods. . . . Although technically distinct, the terms are often used interchangeably, with no significant legal consequences.” Dranoff-Perlstein Assocs. v. Sklar, 967 F.2d 852, 855 (3d Cir. 1992) (citation omitted). As such, a court addresses the question of whether a service mark is entitled to protection under the Lanham Act using the same standard that it applies when considering trademarks. Id. “In order to determine whether a mark is protectable as a trademark, marks are divided into four classifications: (1) generic (such as ‘DIET CHOCOLATE FUDGE SODA’); (2) descriptive (such as ‘SECURITY CENTER’); (3) suggestive (such as ‘COPPERTONE’); and (4) arbitrary or fanciful (such as ‘KODAK’).” A&H Sportswear, Inc. v. Victoria’s Secret Stores, Inc., 237 F.3d 198, 221 (3d Cir. 2000) (citing Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc., 505 U.S. 763, 768, 112 S.Ct. 2753, 2758 (1992)). “In order to qualify for Lanham Act protection, a mark must either be suggestive, arbitrary, or fanciful, or must be descriptive with a demonstration of secondary meaning. . . . Generic marks receive no protection; indeed, they are not ‘trademarks’ at all.” Id. at 222 (citations omitted).

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