FIU vs. FNU name fight ends with a million-dollar settlement after 7 years in court
How much is a name worth?
In the case of FIU and FNU, the answer is more than a million.
That’s how much Florida International University had to pay in a settlement after losing its trademark infringement case against Florida National University.
The $1.135 million settlement comes nearly seven years after FIU sued for-profit FNU over its use of the word “university.”
“The experience is bittersweet,” said Steven Peretz, an intellectual property lawyer who represented FNU in the case. “We thought the lawsuit was unnecessary but we’re glad to have gotten the attorney fees.”
The settlement was finalized in January. The legal fight had begun in May 2013. That’s when FIU, a major state university with two large campuses and four smaller sites across Miami-Dade, sued the smaller Florida National University for changing its name from Florida National College in 2012.
The lawsuit claimed FNU’s similar name was infringing on FIU’s trademark rights.
FNU disagreed and said its name change reflected its new university status after it became accredited to offer more advanced degrees, including a Masters of Business Administration. FNU has campuses in Hialeah and Miami.
The courts sided with FNU, stating there was no evidence that college applicants had confused the two South Florida schools. They cited 12 other schools in the state that have the words “Florida” and “University” in their names, along with the different definitions of the words “international” and “national.”
FNU then won $1.15 million in legal fees in August 2019 — a decision FIU later appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Peretz said FNU also had an additional legal fee request of about $134,000 pending before the district court for the prior year of litigation.
FIU’s appeal has been dismissed as part of the settlement that has already been paid, said Peretz, one of six lawyers from Peretz Chesal & Herrmann in Miami that represented FNU during the lengthy legal battle.
FIU says it did not dip into any of its student fees or state appropriations to pay the $1.135 million settlement. Instead, it used funds from its “self-supporting Auxiliary operations, such as retail and food service operations,” the school said in a brief emailed statement.
Peretz later said in a written statement that FNU “is obviously pleased” because “attorney fees are rarely awarded for the successful defense of a trademark infringement claim. But at the same time, FNU is disappointed that the case wasn’t resolved amicably long ago.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 11:38 AM.
