In May 2014, RATP Dev and its affiliates (the giant public transport operator headquartered in Paris, France with businesses around the globe) launched a bus tour service in New York City called “Open Tour NY”–ignoring that this name and trademark have been our company’s highly valuable and well-recognized brand for over 10 years. RATP Dev and its affiliates’ use of a virtually identical mark for identical services as offered by our company has resulted in a legal dispute for trademark infringement and unfair competition that we are advancing for willful misappropriation of our trademark and company name.
A preliminary injunction precluding RATP Dev’s subsidiaries from further use of the infringing mark “Open Tour NY” has already been issued by the court. RATP Dev’s decision to brand their services as “Open Tour NY” has created havoc, disrupting the regular course of our operations due to consumer confusion over the identities of the respective parties. The need to take legal action and to obtain an injunction became all the more critical upon learning of the numerous negative reviews of RATP Dev and its affiliates’ bus tour services on third- party social media websites such as Trip Advisor and Yelp, which consumers will inaccurately associate with our company given the identical name.
We would like to emphasize to all of our clients that our company, OPENTOUR, INC., is not affiliated, associated or in any way connected with “OPEN LOOP NEW YORK”.
New York
September 10, 2014