To all amzn bulls. Don't sell your stock, based on this news.
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Amazon Bookstore Inc. is suing Amazon.com in federal court, alleging the Internet giant that sells books, music and videos is knowingly infringing on the smaller store's trademark.
The bookstore, in a lawsuit filed April 7 in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, seeks cancellation of Amazon.com's federal trademark registrations using the word Amazon and asks that Seattle-based Amazon.com stop using the name.
The lawsuit also seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Ps
Maria is screaming out " the momentum is falling off". To me its just another day.
Amazon Bookstore, a 2,000-square-foot, women-oriented Minneapolis bookstore, stocks 25,000 titles and mails a newsletter to more than 2,500 people across the United States and in 11 other countries.
''We get a lot of phone calls daily from people thinking we're Amazon.com. Sometimes they were upset they hadn't gotten an order,'' bookstore President Barb Wieser said Wednesday.
The bookstore at first ignored the problem, but it has escalated with the growth of Amazon.com, Wieser said. Sales of Amazon.com grew from $147.8 million in 1997, the year the company went public, to $610 million in 1998.
''We get e-mail, we get faxes. It's clearly very confused in the public's mind. We get invoices from publishers. We have to explain that we're not Amazon.com,'' Wieser said.
''It's very galling to us that they took our name. It's very galling to us that they ignored our presence. We've been around for almost 30 years. We've worked hard to be who we are. It's very hard to see that taken away,'' she said.
Paul Capelli, spokesman for Amazon.com, said officials of the Seattle-based company had not been formally served with the lawsuit and declined comment until they had seen and studied it.
Attorney Mathias Samuel, representing the bookstore, said the bookstore had not registered the trademark but claims common law ownership through longtime use.
''It's been listed in the phone book for years. They've had a 1-800 number. They've been on the Internet since September 1996,'' Samuel said. Amazon Bookstore has been a member of the American Booksellers Association since 1986, while Amazon.com has been a member since 1994, he noted.
The goal of the lawsuit is to stop the confusion, Samuel said.
''We believe that the only way for that to happen is for them to stop using the name Amazon,'' he said. ''The rapid growth and vast size of Amazon.com, along with its massive marketing expenditures, is overwhelming Amazon Bookstore.''
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