Visa International Service Association v. Jsl Corporation

610 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 2010)

Facts

D runs eVisa, a 'multilingual education and information business that exists and operates exclusively on the Internet,' at www.evisa.com. D traces the name eVisa back to an English language tutoring service called 'Eikaiwa Visa' that he ran while living in Japan. 'Eikaiwa' is Japanese for English conversation, and the 'e' in eVisa is short for Eikaiwa. D founded eVisa shortly before his return to America, where he started running it out of his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. P sued D claiming that eVisa is likely to dilute P's trademark. P conducted market surveys and provided expert testimony that showed dilution. D claimed he had no intent to dilute P’s mark. D appealed from a summary judgment for P. D claims that the district court erred when it found as a matter of law that eVisa was likely to dilute the Visa trademark.