US supermarket chain Trader Joe’s is suing the decentralized exchange (DEX) Trader Joe for federal trademark infringement.
“Defendants operate a cryptocurrency platform called ‘Trader Joe’ and use the domain name traderjoexyz.com‘, according to a court filing. “Defendants named the platform ‘to the grocery store’ – none other than Trader Joe’s – and developed a narrative around a fictionalized ‘Trader Joe’ who sells his crops at the local market, further damaging Trader Joe’s business and brand makes one think.”
Trader Joe is one of the most popular decentralized exchanges, starting on the Avalanche network before expanding to BNB Chain, Arbitrum and Ethereum. It has over $77 million worth of different tokens across chains and processed over $25 million in transactions in September. data shows.
The complaint filed last week in the US District Court for the Central District of California alleges that DEX “committed fraud” to obscure its origin story in order to win legal proceedings over the domain name. After Trader Joe failed to respond to private requests to stop abusing the trademark, the retailer filed a complaint complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in May 2022 to strip the crypto company of its domain name tradejoexyz.com.
“To save their case, Defendants fabricated a false story. In the WIPO proceedings, Defendants obscured the true beginning of the name ‘Trader Joe’ and falsely claimed that the platform was named after the co-founder’s brother” , the filing said.
The supermarket chain is seeking damages and a jury trial.
The price of JOE, Trader Joe’s native token, fell 4.5% over the past week, and traders may continue to respond to legal action.
UPDATE (October 10, 12:58 UTC): Adds details of legal complaints throughout.