By Gretchen Schuldt, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Mar. 13--A federal judge in Milwaukee found a Texas company in contempt Monday for continuing to use the term "referee" in its Internet addresses after he temporarily blocked it from doing so.
U.S. District Judge Charles N. Clevert ordered the company, Right Sports, to pay the costs incurred by Racine-based Referee Enterprises Inc. in seeking the contempt ruling. Both firms cater to referees.
Clevert told Right Sports of Houston to change a Web page that automatically takes users to Right Sports' officiating.com site when they type "ereferee.com" into a browser.
"The defendants must immediately terminate the jump pages that are in effect so parties are not transferred to officiating.com without any notification whatsoever," he said.
He also ordered Right Sports to post a disclaimer on its officiating.com Web site saying it is not associated with Referee Enterprises, which operates the referee.com site.
The judge also ordered Right Sports to stop using a logo featuring a whistle against a field of umpire's stripes that is similar to Referee Enterprises' logo.
Clevert refused Right Sports' request that he stay the injunction pending an appeal.
Lawyers for both companies declined to comment after the ruling.
Referee Enterprises, which publishes Referee Magazine, sued Right Sports last year, alleging trademark violation. The lawsuit claims Right Sports' Internet domain names infringe on Referee Enterprises' "Referee" trademark.
The suit alleges Right Sports snapped up about 109 domain names, including at least 34 "referee" domain names. Right Sports obtained many of the names about the same time it was trying to negotiate an association with Referee Enterprises or soon after the negotiations failed, the suit says.
A Right Sports official testified last week that obtaining the names was not related to the negotiations.
The case gained national attention after Clevert issued a temporary injunction in January prohibiting Right Sports from "using the mark 'Referee' or any other mark confusingly similar to Referee Enterprises' 'Referee' trademark, either alone or in combination with other words."
Most of the attention has focused on the breadth of Clevert's order and his strict restrictions on Right Sports' use of a common term like "referee" as a trademark.
Clevert said during a hearing last week that Right Sports mentioned in passing that "referee" is a generic term but failed to argue that the word was not entitled to trademark protection.
Right Sports, which has since switched attorneys, also did not object to the scope of the temporary injunction before the judge signed it. He delayed signing the order to give the firm a chance to do so, Clevert said.
"Not a whimper was heard from the defense," he said.
In seeking the contempt order, Referee Enterprises said that Right Sports maintained numerous Web sites -- including ereferee.com, ereferee.net, ereferee.org, refereeforum.com, refereeinsurance.com, and refereeresume.com -- even after Clevert issued the injunction.
Right Sports said it tried to comply with Clevert's order.
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(c) 2001, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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