The day before the much-hyped, February 24 launch of its new Xoom tablet, Motorola was sued for trademark infringement by Xoom Corporation - an online payment processor - in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A copy of the complaint is available here. Xoom is seeking a permanent injunction against Motorola's alleged infringement of the XOOM® trademark along with damages (including treble damages) allegedly incurred as a result of Motorola's activities. "This case appears to involve a calculated risk by Motorola," says Christopher Barnett, a trademark attorney with Scott & Scott, LLP. "Even if it was previously unaware of Xoom's business, Motorola likely knew about Xoom's trademark from an early stage (Xoom owns the www.xoom.com domain name, for example). When Motorola applied to register its XOOM™ trademark with the USPTO, none of Xoom's registrations were identified as obstacles to registration. However, Motorola nevertheless must have been expecting a challenge from Xoom in the form of an opposition proceeding or a lawsuit. It appears to believe that there is sufficient dissimilarity between the products and services associated with the competing marks that its use of the term will be allowed to move forward." For more information, please contact Mr. Barnett at 800-596-6176 or cbarnett@scottandscottllp.com.