IAB and MediaPost Settle Lawsuit Over Trademark Use
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 5/9/2005
MediaPost can use a trademark it once shared with its former partner, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, for its conference and magazine, but not for a planned awards show, according to the settlement of a lawsuit.
The IAB, a trade association for the interactive advertising industry, in February filed suit against MediaPost, alleging that the publisher wasn't authorized to use the OMMA trademark, which is short for Online Media Marketing and Advertising. Before returning to the practice of producing their own individual events, the IAB and MediaPost jointly produced the Interactive Advertising World Conference & Expo.
In its U.S. District Court suit, the IAB alleged that the two entities created the OMMA trademark for an awards program to accompany Interactive Advertising World. But MediaPost contended that its Publisher Ken Fadner created the trademark and only lent it to the awards show, intending it for later use as the name for an event, magazine and another awards show.
It was last July when the two entities decided to merge their annual shows, MediaPost's 5-year-old Forecast and the bureau's IAB Advertisers Forum. The result, Interactive Advertising World, drew about 2,000 attendees and more than two dozen sponsors to New York's Millennium Hotel last Sept. 20–21.
Now that the partnership with IAB has dissolved, MediaPost is planning to produce two OMMA events this year. OMMA West is set for June 6–7 at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel, while OMMA East is scheduled Sept. 27–28 at New York's Marriott Marquis. The OMMA events are each projected to draw 5,000 attendees and 200 exhibitors.
In the meantime, IAB has teamed up with VNU's Adweek magazine to produce another event, the MIXX Conference, Expo & Awards Show at the Millennium Hotel in the same late-September time period as the defunct Interactive Advertising World.
"We're just happy that it's settled. We're now focused on doing our own successful MIXX event in September," said Sheryl Draizen, who is in charge of IAB's marketing and events. "Our intention is to create an event that has the right mix of high-quality decision-makers."
