Oasys Mobile and WAAT Media, including parent company Mandalay Media and subsidiaries Twistbox Entertainment and Thumbplay, are named as defendants in the suit, as well as AT&T Mobility and Verizon Communications.
The case, which seeks damages and an injunction shutting down Girls Gone Mobile's website, stems from an apparent failed deal between Mantra and WAAT, a mobile distributor that specializes in “late-night” mobile offerings, including downloadable videos, pictures and wallpaper.
Mantra and WAAT, according to the suit, entered into an exclusive wireless distribution deal in September 2005, where WAAT would distribute content and pay Mantra on a quarterly basis.
But WAAT, the suit said, stopped making royalty payments in June 2008.
Mantra said it later lost the deal it bargained for when WAAT entered into a distribution agreement with Cary, N.C.-based Oasys to stream adult-themed downloadable content offered at Girls-Gone-Mobile.com.
According to the suit, the defendants began to copycat Girls Gone Mobile mark to … “deliberately target and imitate Girls Gone Wild’s adult-themed entertainment products marketed and sold under its Girls Gone Wild mark.”
“Oasys misappropriated plaintiff’s mark and solicited … existing and potential customers in order to usurp Girls Gone Wild’s existing and potential business in order to conduct its competing business under the Girls Gone Mobile mark,” the suit said.
Mantra noted in the suit that Girls Gone Mobile, which applied for a trademark in 2007, is too similar with the 10-year-old Girls Gone Wild brand. “[T]he Girls Gone Wild mark has developed secondary meaning and significance in the minds of the purchasing public and has become and is famous and distinctive,” the suit said.
Mobile providers Verizon and AT&T are named in the suit because the telecoms market the Girls Gone Mobile content over their wireless networks.
The suit, filed at U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeks damages over alleged trademark infringement, unfair competition, intentional interference with existing contractual relations and breach of contract, among others.
WAAT Media CEO told XBIZ that the company does not comment on pending legal matters.
Calls to Girls Gone Wild counsel Konrad Gatien went unreturned at post time.