David And Goliath: UK’s ShortsTV files lawsuit against Google’s YouTube Shorts over trademark
UK based ShortsTV has filed a lawsuit against Google for its TikTok-style YouTube Shorts business over a trademark row.
Issuing legal proceedings at the UK Intellectual Property Enterprise Court this afternoon, the case centres on Google’s adopted brand name and logo for its short video platform.
Founded in 2000, ShortsTV is a network dedicated to short films and the company claims to have been instrumental in building and solidifying the term Shorts to mean quality short films associated with the company and its networks.
In late 2020, Google, under its YouTube brand, started testing and then globally rolling out its video service, YouTube Shorts.
When challenged on its use of the similar logo, Google responded by litigating to attack the validity of ShortsTV’s existing registered trademarks in multiple jurisdictions, forcing ShortsTV to defend its brand and trademarks which have existed in various forms since 2008.
“This is really saddening,” says ShortsTV Founder and CEO, Carter Pilcher. “A massive company decides to adopt branding that we consider almost identical to our own, and which we have spent decades of concerted effort building into a recognised and respected name in our industry, and when challenged, they apply to cancel our trademarks around the world rather than seek an amicable resolution.
That is unfortunately the position ShortsTV faces, and we have been left no choice but to pursue this litigation as a last resort. We hope the Court will agree that Google has infringed our trademarks.”
Google have been contacted for comment.