Kaplan Inc. v. EDEF Health Services International LLC

Holding:

In this case for trademark and copyright infringement involving materials for test prep course, plaintiff and defendants came to a settlement, both agreeing to a permanent injunction that would prevent defendants from reproducing and distributing plaintiff’s copyrighted examination review materials and using plaintiff’s trademarks.

Detailed Summary:

Plaintiff Kaplan, Inc. is a provider of licensure examination review courses for students for a wide range of tests and licensure examinations. It is a holder of several registered trademarks and a copyright on the course book known as Kaplan Nursing The Course Book: Preparation for the NCLEX-RN Exam. In its complaint, plaintiff alleged that sometime in July 2006, it discovered that defendant EDEF Health Service International was using plaintiff’s name without its authority for the purpose of enrolling prospective licensure examinees for an examination review program for the NCLEX-RN. 

Plaintiff also found that defendant’s website and other promotional materials were supposedly claiming that defendant Edna Domingo was a “certified Kaplan reviewer” without its consent.  Since there was no such person as a “certified Kaplan reviewer,” defendant appropriated its trademark without its consent. In addition, defendant lifted portions, again without plaintiff’s authorization, from its copyrighted course materials.  This unauthorized copying was done by reproducing and distributing exact copies of pages from its review course book.

Defendants answered by denying these accusations.  Thereafter, plaintiff and defendant came to a settlement, both agreeing to a permanent injunction that would prevent defendants from reproducing and distributing plaintiff’s copyrighted examination review materials and using plaintiff’s trademarks.

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