Iron Mountain Hosting named in trademark infringement lawsuit
Things are heating up in the solar powered web hosting industry. On March 24th, Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) has filed suit against InterMountain Mortgage, d/b/a Iron Mountain Hosting, for trademark infringement. The case (PDF of filing attached below) cites that InterMountain Mortgage is infringing on a trademark that Iron Mountain has held since the early 1950s.The suit claims that by utilizing the trademarks Iron Mountain Hosting is potentially causing irreparable damage to the plaintiff, Iron Mountain Incorporated. (I can certainly understand, my head's spinning just trying to write about it!) In previous similar cases of trademark infringement we've investigated, the defendant rarely (In this case, Iron Mountain Incorporated) prevails against the plaintiff.
Similar cases recently such as eFastservers vs. Fastservers have resulted in large penalties & legal fees.
In the attached PDF, web hosting forums such as webhostingtalk.com are referenced as having included both discussion regarding Iron Mountain & Iron Mountain Hosting in the same topics. Confusion galore!
We've attached the pdf below for your perusal. We're curious to see how this case goes, if Iron Mountain Hosting loses they'll be required by law to pay for Iron Mountain Incorporated's legal fees: Now that's a bill no amount of energy savings is going to recoup! Days ahead might not be all that sunny.
Iron Mountain Incorporated has also noted that they're entitled to injunctive relief which means after an initial hearing, they could shut down imountain effective almost immediately. I wish both parties the best of luck with their battle ahead.
Attachment: Iron Mountain vs. Iron Mountain
The "trademark infringement lawsuit" was dropped several months ago.
It's with great pleasure that we working things worked out amicably between Iron Mountain Hosting (imountain.com) and Iron Mountain Inc (ironmountain.com) have worked things out amicabably.
We've kept the same ownership group for 26 years now and we will keep on the tradition of high quality clustered hosting.
Thankyou
Iron Mountain tends to believe their own lies.
i personally know that fact, sinse I too, have experience with their unethical ways.
Wow, can't believe no one looked into the name prior to setting up .. Iron Mountain is a pretty large company and their service offerings at the very least shoudl have caused hosting to pause and say .. HMMM ..
Honestly, that does it for me. I'm definitely not setting up an account with iMountain now, what if they lose the case?
Iron Mountain does have a domain name service (Domain Name Center). While this is different from web hosting, it's within the realm of Internet services.
I think it'll actually be decided by the courts unless you back down. They may decide to pursue you for damages anyway which in turn could impact your hosting customers (legal costs, penalties).
I wish you the best of luck, really, but choosing that name probably wasn't the best of ideas.
Are they both in the hosting biz?
If yes,I can see the infringement.
I doubt that a biz from the 50's is based on a internet model!
I can't get much into details but it is indeed true, it is not an accurate claim. This will be decided by our lawyers.
On our side, it does not affect our hosting.
Worst case scenario, we'll be iMountain hosting. So although alot of our competitors will be disappointed, our hosting services will continue as usual