Cintas Corp. v. UNITE HERE [1]

On March 5, 2008, Cintas, a Fortune 500 company and manufacturer of uniforms, sued several unions, including UNITE HERE, Change to Win, and International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and several individuals, including Bruce Raynor, Ahmer Qadeer, Keith Mestrich, Elizabeth Gres, Peter Demay, Katie Unger, Stefan Antonowicz, and Does 1-100.  The complaint alleged violations of the RICO Act, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, unfair competition, violations of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and defamation arising out of the defendants' activities online.  

Cintas claims that the defendants first attempted to interfere with their business and exploit fear of economic loss by disseminating false information through print and over the Internet.  Cintas next alleges that defendants made it clear that their interference would only cease if entered into an agreement with defendants regarding union representation.  

The defendants set up several websites that criticized Cintas, including cintasexposed.org (targeting customers), uniformjustice.org (targeting employees) and notonmytrack.info (targeting NASCAR fans).

On June 20, 2008, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint arguing that Cintas had failed to state any valid federal claims.  In addition, they argued that their actions were protected by the First Amendment.  Specifically, defendants argued that the trademark allegations, including those directed at their website, cintasexposed.org, must fail because their use of the Cintas mark was not commercial and posed no risk of confusion.

On March 9, 2009, the district court dismissed all of Cintas' federal claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over its state law claims.  The court dismissed the trademark infringement claim, agreeing that there was no risk of consumer confusion with the use of "Cintas" in cintasexposed.org.  The court noted the obvious critical bent of the website and a disclaimer stating: "CintasExposed.org is an independent website posted by the labor union Unite. It contains criticism and information about the uniform and facilities services rental company Cintas . . . ." 

The court also dismissed the trademark dilution claim, finding that links to the UNITE HERE website, which in turn linked to the UNITE HERE store, did not make the use of the Cintas mark commercial. The court dismissed the cybersquatting claim by noting the defendants were not using the URL as part of a bad faith effort to make a profit.

Cintas filed a notice of appeal in late March 2009.