Newspaper sued over copyright infringement

A California non-profit hospital has slapped the parent company of both The St. Augustine Record and Florida Times-Union with a copyright infringement lawsuit over the name it uses in an ongoing education project.

Times-Union Editor Frank Denton declined to comment on the lawsuit for the Jacksonville Business Journal. Publisher Lucy Talley said the organizations are both trying to help people and are not in competition in an article published yesterday by staff writer Matt Coleman.

According to public records in a Jacksonville federal court, City of Hope, an independent biomedical research and education facility based in Duarte, California, sued Morris Publishing Group, the newspapers owner. The lawsuit filed Monday accuses The Times-Union of federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition.

In the Jacksonville Business Journal article, Talley is quoted, saying “Any naming similarities should not have an adverse impact on either group.

We feel there is enough of a distinction between the two.

Ours is ‘City of Hope: Raising Our Children’ with the skyline of Jacksonville in the background.

It should be enough of a difference.”

The hospital first learned The Times-Union was launching a community research and education initiative called “City of Hope” in June, according to court documents.

A request to change the name of the newspaper’s project was sent two months after launch, but The Times-Union refused to budge, court documents said.

The newspaper’s logo is also “confusingly similar to City of Hope’s federally registered and famous” trademark, the lawsuit alleges.

Both of the logos include the words “City of Hope” and an image of a stick-figure person.

The lawsuit claims that the newspaper’s actions “have caused and will cause irreparable harm to City of Hope.”

The hospital is seeking an injunction as well as monetary damages.

Logos shown to illustrate an issue in the claim of this yet unsettled lawsuit. Any trademark rights reside with the entities in the lawsuit.