An RV rental company uses the Nittany Lion logo in marketing. Penn State filed a federal lawsuit
Penn State took another legal step Wednesday to defend one of its trademarks.
The six count, 137-page federal lawsuit accused GoPSUrv.com of intentionally using the Nittany Lion logo to sell its products and attempting to suggest an affiliation with the university through “virtually all” of its branding and advertising.
“By selecting the domain for registration, which is so close in appearance to Penn State’s own athletics program domain and PSU mark, defendant’s purpose was to divert web traffic from the hundreds of thousands of people seeking accommodations for traveling to Penn State’s athletic events for defendant’s financial gain,” university attorney Megan Haines wrote.
The company’s website is “virtually identical” to the university’s athletics website, gopsusports.com, Haines wrote.
The company, which rents RVs for home football games, also uses the Nittany Lion logo in “numerous” images and videos on its website, a similar navy blue color scheme and erected a banner with its logo along U.S. Route 322, she wrote.
That is likely to cause confusion among potential customers because they could believe the company’s goods are “legitimately connected to Penn State, when there is no such relationship,” Haines wrote.
“Defendant’s acts were deliberately and intentionally carried out in bad faith ... for the purpose of trading on Penn State’s reputation embodied in those marks and diluting those marks,” Haines wrote.
The university requested up to $100,000 in damages. Haines also asked a judge to order the company to stop using the university’s trademarks and send all of its materials with the marks to the university.
GoPSUrv.com operator Mark Lauer and university spokesman Wyatt DuBois declined to comment Friday.
Penn State filed a similar federal lawsuit in July against Sport Beer Brewing Company. The university accused owner Paul Parshall of using university trademarks to sell items on his website.
That lawsuit is still pending.