Minnesota Mining v. Taylor

Citation[]

Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. v. Taylor, 21 F.Supp.2d 1003, 48 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1701 (D. Minn. 1998) (full-text).

Plaintiff, 3M, sued defendant for trademark infringement and dilution, alleging that defendant's registration of the domain names "post-it.com," "post-its.com," and "ipost-it.com" infringed 3M's registered POST-IT trademark. The court found that the defendant's registration, use, and attempts to sell the domain names were likely to dilute 3M's famous mark. The court also found that defendant's actions caused a likelihood of confusion, noting that defendant intended to cause consumer confusion in order to extort money from 3M. The court noted the strong public interest in preventing misuse of the Internet and granted 3M's motion for preliminary injunction. The court preliminarily enjoined defendant from using the POST-IT mark or any mark likely to cause confusion or dilute the distinctiveness of the mark, and ordered the defendant to "relinquish" the domain names. It is not clear from the decision whether defendant had to cancel the domain names or transfer them to 3M.