Description

Our law firm represents Catholic Charities USA (“CCUSA”) with respect to various intellectual property matters. Our client is a world-renowned non-profit charitable organization founded over a century ago, and is well-known across the world. CCUSA operates through a network of local Catholic Charity offices, which it oversees. More information is available at www.CatholicCharitiesUSA.org. CCUSA owns the well-known CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA marks, in respect of, inter alia, various philanthropic, social welfare, housing, employment, healthcare, personal and economic development, disaster aid and relief, along with financial sponsorship-related services. Our client’s well-known marks are registered and protected in various jurisdictions, including the United States. We have identified an infringing domain name, catholiccharities-usa.com, which resolves to a suspicious website. The infringing domain name itself includes our client's U.S. Registered Trademark No. 4181985 for CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA. Additionally, the domain name resolves to a webpage which displays the CCUSA logo included in our client's U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4181972. Additionally, the webpage displays the mark CATHOLIC CHARITIES AMERICA which is deceptively similar to our client's U.S. Registered Trademark No. 4181985 for CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA. Further, the entire webpage is almost an exact copy of our client's legitimate website, www.CatholicCharitiesUSA.org except the majority of the text has been translated to Spanish. The webpage uses our client's registrerd trademarks and copies their website's format despute the Infringing User having no connection to our client. The webpage lists an address: 1234 Heritage Blvd, Suite 200, Springfield IL 62704. Further, the webpage listed a phone number +1 (601) 272 3048 which is associated with a WhatsApp Account that also displays the CCUSA mark and logo without our client's authorization. This WhatsApp account is a self-described business account which operates an immigration program through CCUSA. This website and WhatsApp account are involved in a larger scheme which uses the CCUSA name and logo in order to target and defraud vulnerable, Spanish-speaking individuals to charge them for fraudulent or nonexistent legal services related to immigration.