Updated June 12, 11:43 a.m. ET
Tech start-up aioTV filed suit on June 11 in the U.S. District Court of Colorado against ATT's subsidiary Aio Wireless for infringing on its trademark.
The suit alleges that when AT&T established the pre-paid wireless service, Aio Wireless, it "launched an aggressive advertising and marketing campaign of an `aio wireless' service that infringes and completely appropriates Plaintiff's previously established `aio' trademark."
The suit also alleges that the AT&T service causes confusion in the market that will hurt its business prospects. It asks the court for an injunction to stop Aio Wireless and unspecified monetary damages.
aioTV offers operators a white label video platform that allows them to integrate multiple sources of live, on-demand and freely available video content into a unified TV experience across connected devices.
For example, on June 6, it announced a licensing agreement with Corporación Medcom Panamá, S.A. that enables the operator to use the aioTV OTT platform to deliver their latest video service offering, PlayTV to over 3 million customers across Panama.
The suit says that aioTV has revenue of about $1.5 million and some 150,000 users.
In an email to B&C, an AT&T spokesman responded to the lawsuit by arguing that "because Aio Wireless is in a very different business than aioTV, we don't believe there is any trademark infringement."
The spokesman also pointed out that AT&T filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on June 6. That complaint asks for a for declaratory judgment ruling that no trademark infringement exists between aioTV and Aio Wireless.
