Post-Mortem of a Misguided Logo Trademark Lawsuit–LegalForce v. Internet Brands

The plaintiff in this case is LegalForce, Raj Abhyanker CEO, which run the notorious trademark registration operation Trademarkia. How notorious? Trademarkia’s own web site has a page entitled “Is Trademarkia a Scam? Debunking Hearsay,” which brings to mind the old adage (commonly attributed to Ronald Reagan) that if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

The defendant in this case is Internet Brands, which operates a portfolio of websites, including the website lawfirms.com, an online lawyer referral service.

LegalForce objected to LawFirms’ logo. The following image shows LegalForce’s logo (top), LawFirms’ initial logo (middle), and LawFirms’ revised logo (bottom) after some counseling by the judge.

I see some font and color similarities between the LegalForce and first LawFirms logo, but probably not enough to warrant a multi-year lawsuit. Certainly the case should have ended when LawFirms adopted the revised logo.

It did not. Instead, it went to a 4-day trial before Judge Alsup, who is on the cusp of retirement. In several Judge Alsup cases I’ve blogged, plaintiffs survived a motion to dismiss based on their initial story, only to get hammered when their stories don’t hold up in later proceedings. That’s exactly what happens here, producing a characteristically stinging opinion.

[I’m blogging this messy case primarily because of the discussion about search engines as a marketing channel, as well as the community’s interest in Raj’s endeavors. Some of his other appearances on the blog.]

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The court runs through the standard Sleekcraft factors, comparing the LegalForce logo to the initial LawFirms logo.

Actual Confusion. “plaintiff produced zero evidence of actual confusion”:

There is zero evidence that anyone who saw an ad for defendant’s referrals service to law firms believed he was seeing an ad for plaintiff’s law firm. There is zero evidence that anyone who visited defendant’s www.lawfirms.com website, which displayed defendant’s marks, believed he was visiting plaintiff’s www.legalforce.com website. There is zero evidence that anyone who was referred to a law firm by defendant believed he was being referred to a law firm by plaintiff, or believed he was being referred to plaintiff

Marketing Channels–Web Searches.

Both plaintiff and defendant have used keyword marketing but this order finds that no single web search has returned or will ever likely return both plaintiff’s and defendant’s websites showing their marks….Plaintiff produced no credible evidence that plaintiff and defendant — specifically for the websites bearing or likely to bear the marks at issue — have bid on the same keywords or would. Defendant did not engage in “keyword squatting,” whereby a defendant’s keyword bidding makes searches for a plaintiff return results also or instead for a defendant….

Plaintiff produced no credible evidence that defendant has undertaken any effort to appear in search results for the same searches as plaintiff, or ever would…

there is no credible evidence that the service marks at issue ever have appeared side by side on the same online “shelf,” nor any credible evidence that one service mark has appeared where the other would have been expected

[For a discussion about keyword advertising and shelf space analogies, see my Brand Spillovers paper.]

To be clear, the judge enumerates many deficiencies with LegalForce’s facts, but this does not imply that changing any one of these facts would have flipped the outcome. For example, what the judge calls “keyword squatting” (a better phrase than “keyword conquesting,” but only barely) categorically isn’t trademark infringement if the plaintiff’s trademarks aren’t referenced in the ad copy (and usually isn’t infringement even if they are). See the Lerner & Rowe and Warby Parker cases. Thus, LawFirms would still have won even if it had “keyword squat” on the LegalForce trademark. (Also, this case involves logos, not word marks).

Marketing Channels–AI. At trial, Raj said that focusing on consumers’ experiences at Google search is old-school because “Your honor, Google is dead.” The “Google is Dead” meme appears to be quite popular online, but also, Google search revenue in 2024 was nearly $200B.

To shift the attention away from Google search, LegalForce argued that consumers would receive confusing AI outputs. The court responds tartly: “Mr. Abhyanker’s own thoughts on these topics shared from the witness stand were not cogent or credible.”

There’s more discussion about other marketing channels, but here’s the court’s bottom-line assessment:

there is no proof that consumers have ever seen or will ever see the service marks at issue in the same marketing channel — not side-by-side, not serially (such as after a Google search for one instead returns the other), not in any way. LegalForce and LawFirms.com are not marketed in the same places in part because they do not offer the same services.

Similarity of Services/Product Line Expansion. “For all periods placed at issue by plaintiff, www.lawfirms.com in total collected and distributed fewer than 25 trademark leads to trademark lawyers, representing less than $1,000 in revenues….For the specific November 2023 to July 2024 period when www.lawfirms.com used the accused mark, zero trademark leads and indeed zero intellectual property leads of any kind were even collected.” With less than $1k of possibly “diverted” revenues at issue in this case, what are we doing here?

LegalForce said it intended to expand into LawFirms’ lawyer referral space. The judge did not see that as credible: “Such supposed intent is rejected as false…The supposed new plans are a fanciful gimmick invented solely for trial purposes.”

Consumer Care. “People seeking referral to a trademark or intellectual property lawyer exercise moderate care. They are more mentally alert than someone grabbing a lemon-lime soda.” (I guess the judge doesn’t think Sprite consumers are very discerning?)

Mark Strength. The court says the plaintiff is better known for its notorious Trademarkia brand than the LegalForce logo, which appears only in obscure places on the website.

Defendant Intent. “The worst that could be said was that defendant neglected to do a trademark search before settling on a mark that assembled common elements in a common way.”

Mark Similarity. Plaintiff did a consumer survey showing the two logos head-to-head. The survey asked: ““If you saw the logos [below] on two different websites [whe]n searching for law firms, would you think they are connected, affiliated, or associated in any way?” The percentage answering “Yes,” we eventually learned, was 13 percent.”

At trial, plaintiff’s expert Michael Rodenbaugh suggested the confusion rate was 32%, which combined the “yes” and “maybe” answers. He then defended the conflation by retconning what the 32% number meant. The judge didn’t appreciate this, saying it “is emblematic of the lack of credibility of plaintiff’s case.”

The judge gave more credit to the defendant’s survey: “Defendant’s more methodologically robust survey showed that the bottom-line number for those likely to be confused was zero percent.” With a zero percent consumer confusion rate, what are we doing here?

The judge then excoriated Raj over the evidence about consumer confusion:

At first, he disclaimed expertise in confusion surveys, after directing the creation of one; later, he claimed the entire discipline of confusion surveys was methodologically broken, after his own creation was taken apart. What he consistently lacked was credibility. He personally sought to manipulate the survey design and then to lead his experts down a primrose path towards opining on more than what the survey could support. To the extent either expert communicated with plaintiff about the survey as plaintiff designed and undertook it, those communications were made while ignorant of relevant, material information that plaintiff withheld….

The expert witness also gets Alsupped:

Expert Rodenbaugh also destroyed his own credibility more broadly. For instance, he testified that there remained a chance that a person having seen the senior mark at a retail location more than a decade ago might still recall the mark well enough to be confused by seeing the junior mark online today. Expert Rodenbaugh had no specific foundation nor even specialized experience leading him to believe this could be true. Instead, he simply testified to the answer plaintiff wanted rather than to the truth.

I can vouch from first-hand experience that being an expert is a tough gig. However, every expert needs to do upfront diligence about their prospective client’s position and integrity, and then pay close attention to any bright flashing red warnings identified during that diligence.

Judge Alsup excoriates Raj some more:

Mr. Abhyanker then testified misleadingly under oath to having spent $10 million advertising the mark. On cross-examination it was revealed that zero of that $10 million had been spent buying ads showing the actual marks at issue. Money was spent buying ads for “Trademarkia.” This was not a half truth; this was a no truth.

There’s even more stinging criticism directed at both sides about their conduct during discovery.

The judge summarizes the evidence to show why plaintiff loses:

the factual underpinnings of every Sleekcraft factor point against plaintiff, as above. There was no confusion. Plaintiff conceded as much. Nor was confusion likely: The senior mark was weak. Plaintiff’s Composite was on the “conceptually weaker end” and a commercial waif: Plaintiff purchased no advertisements displaying it. Plaintiff promoted “Trademarkia” instead, while recognition of “Trademarkia” did not translate into recognition of “LegalForce.” There was no credible evidence that anyone not involved in this litigation could even recall Plaintiff’s Composite. The marks were not similar. Yes, Plaintiff’s Composite and Defendant’s Composite each arranged a squat parallelogram alongside a two-worded description related to law. But the arrangement was itself a functional commonplace, there were differences in the symbols (“LF” versus column, with a gradient of color versus one flat shade), there were differences in the words (bolding one versus two words, while describing one legal team versus a service reaching all law firms) — and the differences stood out. The marks have not appeared in the same specific marketing channels. No web search retrieved both. And, while plaintiff’s mark was on LinkedIn but not Instagram, defendant’s mark was on Instagram but not LinkedIn. There was no credible evidence that the senior and junior mark ever appeared head-to-head or serially in the same channel or likely would. The services were not related. Yes, both parties’ services relate to law, at the highest level of generality. But providing legal services as a law firm is not the same as selling leads to many law firms as a referral service — not in fact, nor as it appears to those using each. Plaintiff’s www.legalforce.com law firm mainly served individual businesspeople with trademark issues. Defendant’s www.lawfirms.com referral service mainly served individual people looking to find and compare lawyers to help with a personal need such as after an accident. Yes, there was some overlap. It was incidental, not targeted: Defendant collected a small number of leads for trademark lawyers during all periods plaintiff put at issue, and zero during the period using the accused mark. Nor will there be any expansion. Plaintiff has had years to expand. Its newfound plan to do so is a litigation gimmick. People seeking lawyers are not careless. Moreover, there was no intent to confuse. Defendant had no reason to do so. Plaintiff was not well known, the two did not overlap much in what they offered, and neither was likely to change much.

No matter how these factors are combined or weighed, they come out against plaintiff.

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This case cries out for a trademark fee shift to the defense. That would be the appropriate consequence for forcing a 4-day trial and a 31 page opinion that repeatedly triggered the “what are we doing here?” meme. However, because the judge wasn’t pleased with the defense’s conduct either, the judge might decide to let each party marinate in the litigation choices they made.

Case Citation: LegalForce RAPC Worldwide P.C. v. MH Sub I, LLC, 2025 WL 3675365 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 18, 2025)