Opinion ID: 4198547
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff’s Lanham Act Claims

Text: Plaintiff first alleges a violation of the Lanham Act under 15 U.S.C. § 1225(a). Plaintiff asserts that Defendants have falsely represented that the allegedly stolen resources are owned by Defendants and that these statements deceived or confused prospective customers in violation of the Act. The statutory provision at issue provides: (1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which— (A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or (B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities, 5 Case: 16-15240 Date Filed: 08/24/2017 Page: 6 of 16 shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a). “Section 1125(a) thus creates two distinct bases of liability: false association, § 1125(a)(1)(A), and false advertising, § 1125(a)(1)(B).” Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1377, 1384 (2014). Plaintiff’s Complaint does not specify which type of Lanham Act claim Plaintiff purports to bring. This alone might doom Plaintiff’s attempt to plead Lanham Act claims, but the claims fail under either theory anyway. As to false association, the Act “forbids unfair trade practices involving infringement of . . . trademarks, even in the absence of federal trademark registration.” Custom Mfg. & Eng’g, Inc. v. Midway Servs., Inc., 508 F.3d 641, 647 (11th Cir. 2007) (alterations in original). Nonetheless, Plaintiff must still show that it “had enforceable trademark rights in the mark or name.” Id. To this end, all that Plaintiff pleads is: “Black Diamond is an unregistered but registerable trademark used by Plaintiff in connection with its coal, coal reserves and/or goods and/or services regarding monetizing the coal reserves. The same goes for the timber at issue in this case.” However, we are not bound to accept as true such “a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation” and mere “labels and conclusions . . . will not do.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). Plaintiff’s pleading is not sufficient 6 Case: 16-15240 Date Filed: 08/24/2017 Page: 7 of 16 to establish that it had an enforceable trademark right in the Black Diamond name. And further, even if Plaintiff had adequately pled the existence of an enforceable trademark, Plaintiff’s Complaint is devoid of any allegations that Defendants made unauthorized use of it or that Defendants “had adopted a mark or name that was the same, or confusingly similar to its mark, such that consumers were likely to confuse the two.” Suntree Techs., Inc. v. Ecosense Int’l, Inc., 693 F.3d 1338, 1346 (11th Cir. 2012) (quotation marks omitted); see also Custom Mfg., 508 F.3d at 647 (“[T]he touchstone of liability in a trademark infringement action is not simply whether there is unauthorized use of a protected mark, but whether such use is likely to cause consumer confusion.”). As to false advertising, Plaintiff is correct that the Lanham Act also “creates a federal remedy ‘that goes beyond trademark protection,’” (namely, “a cause of action for unfair competition through misleading advertising or labeling”) but Plaintiff has also failed to plead this type of claim. See POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co., 134 S. Ct. 2228, 2234 (2014) (quoting Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 539 U.S. 23, 29 (2003)). Most fundamentally, Plaintiff has not sufficiently pled that Defendants made “any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact” nor any “commercial advertising or promotion” that “misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin” of the coal and timber at 7 Case: 16-15240 Date Filed: 08/24/2017 Page: 8 of 16 issue in this case. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1) (emphasis added). Instead, Plaintiff simply asserts in general terms that “Defendants have falsely represented (and continue to falsely represent)” that “the coal and timber reserves are owned by Defendants.” But beyond this conclusory assertion, the Complaint contains no factual support for the proposition that Defendants representations are actually false. In other words, the Complaint contains no factual support for the allegation that the resources at issue are actually owned by Plaintiff. The Complaint asserts that “[i]rrespective of title to the surface land, Plaintiff possesses the ownership rights to mineral, coal, timber, and other natural resources wrongfully taken by Defendants,” but again this assertion is conclusory. There is no mention of any geographic areas, boundaries, tracts of land, deeds of ownership, mining lease agreements, specific instances of collection, or any other factual predicate for Plaintiff’s assertion that it owns the amorphous natural resources mentioned in the Complaint. “While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief’ requires more than labels and conclusions, and . . . [f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (2007). As such, even assuming that Defendants 8 Case: 16-15240 Date Filed: 08/24/2017 Page: 9 of 16 are representing that they own the coal and timber that they are selling, there is no support for the allegation that these representations are false. And further, “[t]o invoke the Lanham Act’s cause of action for false advertising, a plaintiff must plead (and ultimately prove) an injury to a commercial interest in sales or business reputation proximately caused by the defendant’s misrepresentations.” Lexmark, 134 S. Ct. at 1395. Plaintiff alleges that “Plaintiff has been damaged by Defendants’ false statements” and that “Plaintiff will continue to be damaged by Defendants’ false statements” but Plaintiff does not provide any factual support for how or why such an injury to a commercial interest has or will occur. Certainly, the wrongful conversion of Plaintiff’s resources would damage Plaintiff, but that is a matter of state law. Plaintiff does not plead with sufficient factual specificity how allegedly false statements about the ownership of the resources would proximately cause Plaintiff “an injury to a commercial interest in sales or business reputation.” Id. Plaintiff has therefore failed to plead a cause of action for a violation of the Lanham Act, and the district court did not err by dismissing these claims.