2006-05-09


By: Ken Knox
Posted: 5:14 pm PDT 5-9-2006



STERLING HEIGHTS, MICHIGAN - When Mario Mendoza, creator and webmaster of adult affiliate program LexusCash, received a letter from lawyers for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. threatening him with a lawsuit if he didn’t take the site down, he started laughing. “I thought it was a joke or something,” Mendoza tells AVNOnline.com. “That was the first time I had heard anything from them. I was kind of surprised.”


At it turns out, however, it was no joke. After Mendoza contacted Toyota’s attorney, Eric T. Fingerhut, a partner at Howrey L.L.P.’s Intellectual Property Group, he was told that the letter – which stated that the appropriation of the Lexus name for a pornographic site “dilutes the distinctive qualities of the famous mark LEXUS” – was, in fact, the real deal, and advised Mendoza to cease all use of the name and any similar names by April 10.

LexusCash is home to pornographic images of Mendoza’s girlfriend, 19-year-old Lexus. Although he admits that the moniker is a stage name (culled from relatives who share the name), Mendoza says he thinks it is unfair for Toyota to bully him into not using it.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Mendoza says. “They tell me it’s a trademark infringement or something. We’re not even competing in the same area.

“It actually kind of offended me that they said I went and registered a name without their consent,” he continues. “On the Internet, you can’t get any domain if it’s already protected by law. It was actually through Yahoo that I got the domain. I don’t see how I could have done anything wrong.”

Mendoza says he plans to fight the lawsuit, and hopes that any press he can get will bring attention to his plight. “There’s no reason if I’m within my rights to give them what they want,” he declares. “I don’t know if they are just trying to scare me or what. But if nobody else knows about this, obviously [Toyota] is the one with more power.”

Representatives from Howrey declined to comment for the story, saying they “could not comment on pending matters.”

 

Strippers and **** stars are exempt from any Trademark infringement suits in the US. lol Bill Clinton put that into law before he left office...

Well he shoulda

 

I think hes wasting his time trying to fight it......

 

<-----[feverishly typing]

only to find out that their server is about to crash 'cause of all the curious CL members wanna look-

Doug

 

They should visit the ghetto if they are looking for h03s named lexus, they'll be handing out subpoenas on every corner.

 

You don't wanna look

 

I'm sure if we go to Suburbia we'll find just as many if not more h03s sitting in private school.

 

She's alright...

 

As sad as it sounds, this guy will probably lose the case in court. Corporations have a lot of
power when it comes to their brand/trademark.

Have you heard about the guy who owns nissan.com? That's actually his last name and
he has a business under it. Nissan Motor Corp. tried to bully him into handing over the
name too! Ridiculous!

Also, Mini applied the lawyer smackdown on a lot of Mini enthusiast web sites with
anything that has "mini" in the title.

There are tons of cases where corporations are crying brand dillusion and trademark
infringement when owners are creating websites with just about anything that contains
the companys' names.

To hell with free speech they say. Corporations can still bully the average joe in court.

 

you my friend are right....hands down

 

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that if a corporation doesn't agressively pursue all violations of it's trademarks - no matter how trivial they may seem- it's looses the legal right to do so in more aggregious cases as well. So, before you label this as a trivial use of Toyota's legal muscle, you need to understand the complexity of trademark law. If Toyota lets this case go, the argument next time would be: you let them use your trademark, so I can too. Any lawyers care to comment?

 

kind of doesn't surprise me that they would do that... and i do agree with the people saying he is waisting his time. although, he is no doubt trying to milk this free publicity and gain public support, then when he loses and has to change his name he'll have so much traffic it's going to benefit him just fine.

p.s. she's a

 

hahaa seems like the site is overloading or something? doesn't work for me

 

Maybe this is a bit out of left field, but does anyone think they (Toyota/Lexus) are doing this now to shine the spot light away from their own sexually related legal issues? It seems so coincidental...

 

I doubt it. This is an on going thing for Toyota (and many other companies). This is not the first time we've seen it here on CL. A couple of examples that comes to mind: LexusPros had to change their name. Even the NorCal local enthusiast site, LexusGoneWild, got a letter from Toyota.