For many years, the large supplement maker Twinlab has maintained it owns a family of trademarks for nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplements using the word FUEL as the second word in the mark. The family of marks include CARBO FUEL, AMINO FUEL, ANABOLIC FUEL, and DIET FUEL, to name just a few.
Now, in a declaratory judgment action, the makers of JETFUEL nutritional supplements is challenging Twinlab in a big way. In response to a Twinlab cease and desist letter, dietary supplement maker World Health Products, which also appears to do business as German American Technologies, is asking a federal court in Philadelphia not only to declare that its JETFUEL mark does not infringe Twinlab’s FUEL marks, but also to completely invalidate all of Twinlab’s FUEL marks.
Complaint, World Health Products, Inc. v. ISI Brands, Inc. and Twin Laboratories, Inc. (E.D. Pa.)
Update: On July 24, 2006, the District Court entered a dismissal for failure to serve the defendant within 120 days as required. In a subsequent motion the plaintiff represented that a settlement had been reached which was the reason why service had not been made.
A check of the website at http://www.germanamericantechnologies.com/ shows that the company is still selling “JETFUEL.” The terms of the settlement do not appear in the court file on-line, but the assumption is that Twin Labs has dropped its objections to “JETFUEL.”
When fossil fuels and petrochemical fertilizers are gone, Earth will be able to sustain only 1 Billion People?