Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009 | 11:05 a.m.
The M Resort in Henderson is suing to block a Chinese Web site operator from infringing on the M Resort's trademarks.
Attorneys for the hotel-casino filed suit in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Tuesday, claiming Hu Mei Li in Shanghai is operating a Web site with a domain name confusingly similar to the M Resort Web site name, themresort.com.
The M Resort asserts the defendant is cybersquatting, or posting a Web site with a confusingly similar name in order to attract viewers intending to find the real M Resort Web site.
A look at the defendant's Web site Wednesday showed it's hosted by a company called Sedo and that the domain name may be for sale. The site includes links to several travel-business Web sites.
In its suit, filed by attorneys with the Las Vegas law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, the M Resort complains that at one point the defendant's Web site was linked to a Web site featuring adult content, "namely provocative images of women."
Now, the lawsuit claims, the defendant is wrongly associating the M Resort name with online travel services that book rooms at hotels that compete with the M Resort.
The suit alleges cybersquatting, trademark infringement, unfair competition and violation of Nevada's deceptive trade practices law.
"In the course of conducting business, defendant knowingly made false representations as to an affiliation, connection and/or association with M Resort by using marks identical and/or confusingly similar to plaintiff's M Resort marks, and otherwise engaged in deceptive trade practices," the lawsuit charges.
The defendant hasn't yet responded to the allegations and couldn't immediately be located for comment.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy