AI Startup Perplexity Sued For Alleged Trademark Infringement

Perplexity, the venture-backed start-up building AI-powered search items, has been sued in federal court for allegedly violating another company’s trademark.

In a grievance submitted Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, lawyers representing a business called Perplexity Solved Solutions accuse Perplexity of infringing on its hallmark rights by using the brand “Perplexity.”

Perplexity Solved Solutions, a Plano, Texas-based firm established in 2017, applied to register the Perplexity hallmark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in October 2021, according to the problem.

Perplexity Solved Solutions primarily sells HR and work environment collaboration software, consisting of a combined control panel for HR analytics and a videoconferencing tool called Perplexity Meet. The company protected a hallmark registration by November 2022 and started promoting products on its site, perplexityonline.com, a domain that Perplexity Solved Solutions had registered in 2021.

Perplexity and counsel for Perplexity Solved Solutions did not respond as of press time. TechCrunch will upgrade the short article if either celebration remarks.

The Texas business alleges that AI startup Perplexity started infringing on its trademark “in or around” August 2022 to promote its AI-powered search engine. The month prior – July 2022 – Perplexity had actually registered the domain perplexity.ai, which the complaint also alleges is infringement.

“The [Perplexity] website currently situated at the infringing domain name plainly features the Perplexity [hallmark],” the problem reads,” [and] the infringing items and services are highly similar to those provided by Perplexity [Solved Solutions] and appeal to a comparable client base. For instance, Perplexity [Solved Solutions’] ‘Perplexity Meet’ and accused’s ‘Perplexity Spaces’ both are software application platforms that assist in communication and collaboration amongst associates in organizations and other organizations.”

Perplexity Spaces, which the San Francisco-based AI start-up introduced for business clients in October, are hubs with a personalized AI assistant and connectors to third-party platforms, apps, and file systems.

The problem declares that Perplexity has “saturated the market” with its infringing branding, consisting of marketing throughout its various social networks accounts. The AI start-up declined to buy the Perplexity trademark in September 2023 when provided, per the problem, and instead chose to apply for its own trademark with the USPTO, which is still pending.

According to the grievance, Perplexity didn’t comply with a stop and desist letter from Perplexity Solved Solutions’ counsel, and it hasn’t withdrawn its pending hallmark application – in spite of efforts to oppose the application before the USPTO’s trial and appeal board.

Attorneys for Perplexity Solved Solutions state that Perplexity’s use of its hallmark is most likely to sow confusion.

“In fact, upon info and belief, customers currently have been puzzled,” the grievance checks out. “For instance, on many celebrations, social networks users have actually ‘tagged’ Perplexity in their posts about defendant’s infringing items and services.”

The complaint alleges that Perplexity’s conduct breaches laws, including the Lanham Act – the U.S. federal law that manages trademarks and unreasonable competition. To name a few forms of legal relief, Perplexity Solved Solutions is looking for to bar Perplexity from its hallmark, along with the trademark “Perplexity AI,” pay damages, and transfer ownership of any domains that include Perplexity branding.

It’s the current courtroom headache for Perplexity, which is presently battling a claim filed by News Corp’s Dow Jones and the NY Post over what the complainants describe as a “content kleptocracy.” Many other news websites have actually expressed issues that Perplexity carefully reproduces their material – simply last October, The New York Times sent the start-up a stop and desist letter.

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