Skip to main content

You are here

Advertisement

Empower Sues Holder of Empower.com Domain

Litigation

The retirement goliath has sued Empower Geographics, Inc. and its president for threatening to sell the Empower.com domain to competitors “and professional cybersquatters.”

According to Bloomberg Law, Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. and its Empower Retirement division have accused the closely held Illinois company and its president/secretary Alex Machinis of using the Empower.com domain name to “demand a multi-million dollar purchase price” from the companies, according to a new suit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Empower Geographics, the suit says, began in the 1990s as a software company called Elastis Corp. that focused on solving problems using mapping and location-based services. A third party registered the empower.com domain in July 1994, and sometime between then and March 2002, according to the report (citing the complaint), the domain was transferred to the defendants.

Bloomberg Law says that Great-West accuses EG of trademark violations, deceptive trade practices and unfair competition. It seeks lost profits and damages, along with injunctive relief blocking what the report says it calls “the textbook definition of cybersquatting” and “profiteering.”

From June 2016 on, the report says the site “appeared to be solely used for the purposes of advertising the sale of the domain (as it appears still today).” If the defendants previously had legitimate rights in the Empower domain, Great-West says in the suit, according to the report, “they unequivocally abandoned those rights” by that point. Negotiations between the parties, the suit says, have failed, with the defendants demanding “multi-million-dollar figures” far beyond “what would be fair in a good-faith transaction,” according to Bloomberg Law.

The suit claims that, starting in 2016, “defendants’ use of the Empower Domain started and has continued to cause actual confusion and mistake, and has deceived and continues to deceive Plaintiffs’ consumers as to the source or affiliation of the Empower Domain and the website associated therewith,” and that “as a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ infringement of the EMPOWER Marks, Plaintiffs have suffered, and will continue to suffer, monetary loss and irreparable injury to their business, reputation, and the goodwill that inures solely to Great-West.” Moreover, “unless enjoined by this Court, these activities will continue unabated and will continue to cause harm to Plaintiffs for which there is no adequate remedy at law,” and that “defendants’ willful and intentional disregard for Great-West’s rights in the registered EMPOWER Marks renders this an exceptional case for which an award of Plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and exemplary damages is warranted.”

The case is Great-West Life & Annuity Ins. Co. v. Empower Geographics Inc., N.D. Ill., No. 21-cv-4004, complaint filed 7/28/21. 

Advertisement