Company is hoping an appeals court will grant a stay.
Diversity recruiting platform Canvas is still using the Canvas brand and Canvas.com domain name after a court deadline forcing a change passed.
U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball granted a preliminary junction on January 5 in favor of Instructure (NYSE: INST), a company that says Canvas is infringing its trademark for Canvas. He gave Canvas 15 days to cease using the brand, delete all online posts using the Canvas brand, and stop using the canvas.com domain name.
On January 19, he denied Canvas’ request for a stay and reiterated his January 20 deadline.
It’s now January 24, and Canvas hasn’t changed its brand.
It appears that Canvas is waiting for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to grant it a reprieve. On January 20, the company filed an Emergency Motion to Stay Entry of Preliminary Injunction Pending Appeal with the appeals court. The company reiterated its plea that changing its brand and domain name would devastate the business, making any future decisions in its favor moot.
The appeals court is asking Instructure to respond by January 26.
It makes sense that Canvas would wait for the appeals court to rule, given the short timeframe and the repercussions of changing its domain name and brand.
Mike says
Is that not contempt of court ,not complying with a Court Order ?. An appeal doesn’t usually stop the Order having to be obeyed . Just asking not inferring anything just interested to know in US.
Andrew Allemann says
I think so, and in fact, late today Instructure’s lawyers asked the judge to rule that. I have to assume Canvas has weighed the potential damage of being in contempt of court vs. the cost of the rebrand, especially if it’s physically impossible to do the rebrand right away without destroying the business.
J.R. says
What a mess of a case from top to bottom. Will be interesting to see what 10th Circuit does in this matter.
A STAY allowing Canvas to continue operations in the interim would have been a fair decision by Judge Kimball.
To destroy a business based on alleged infringement would be a true injustice, if 10th later ruled in favor of Canvas.