The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium is being sued by another zoo for copyright infringement over the name of an upcoming summer festival.
WPXI reports the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, identified as the Cleveland Metropolitan Park District, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Ohio, accusing Pittsburgh Zoo officials of using "the Asian Lantern Festival" without its permission, which could possibly confuse visitors familiar with both festivals.
The lawsuit states that Cleveland Metroparks initially announced its Asian Lantern Festival in 2018, which includes more than 40 displays and hundreds of lighting installations featured, and the group "performed its due diligence to ensure the name was not being used elsewhere.
The Cleveland Metropark Zoo's Asian Lantern Festival attracted more than 165,000 visitors last year -- despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic -- and made $2.6 million in revenue.
Many of the visitors were from Western Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio, which serves as the halfway point between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and those residents could have been swayed to visit the Pittsburgh Zoo instead.
The lawsuit also accuses officials from the Pittsburgh Zoo of visiting the Cleveland Metroparks in 2020 during the venue's Asian Lantern Festival, accusing the representatives of trying "to determine whether Pittsburgh Zoo would like to host a light show of its own."
Last month, Cleveland Metroparks announced it will be hosting its Asian Lantern Festival from July 14 to September 5, 2021.
Cleveland Zoo officials say they learned that the Pittsburgh Zoo had entered a contract with the same vendor and announced their own Asian Lantern Festival was scheduled to take place from August 14 to October 30 one week later.
The lawsuit notes that both events were advertised at around the same time and appear in the same Google searches, while Pittsburgh has included photographs of lanterns from the Cleveland exhibit in its own ads.
Cleveland Metroparks officials emailed the Pittsburgh Zoo notifying them of the trademarks to the event and requested Pittsburgh rebrand its event on June 25.
Pittsburgh Zoo's counsel responded in a letter last week asserting that Cleveland cannot claim trademark rights on the Asian Lantern Festival mark, as well as claiming it would consider renaming next year's event, although not guaranteeing such.
Cleveland is asking the court to stop the Pittsburgh Zoo from using the name and ceasing promotion for the event, as well as paying for damages, fees and other costs created by the alleged infringement.