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When I last wrote about SCI North Carolina Funeral Services, LLC v. McEwen Ellington Funeral Services, Inc., Judge Murphy had entered a TRO against the Defendants for trademark infringement over their use of the McEwen name in their funeral home business. The case seemed cut and dried then, and it looked like that the Defendants had no defense to the infringement claim.
Last week, Judge Murphy entered a preliminary injunction in the same case in 2013 NCBC 11, this time over the Defendants’ vigorous defense. The second time around was a much closer call.
The case involves the McEwen name, which is the middle name of Defendant Carl Ellington. When the Defendants sold the funeral homes that they had operated under the McEwen name to the Plaintiffs, they included in the sale the rights to all "trademarks, tradenames (including all trade names under which [they] did business." McEwen was the last name of Carl J. McEwen, the founder of McEwen Funeral Services, Inc.
Several years after their sale, the Defendants opened a new, competing funeral home under the McEwen name and this trademark infringement lawsuit ensued.
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You don’t see a trademark infringement action in the Business Court every day, let alone a TRO decision, but a case with both came along last Friday in 
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Today, the Business Court denied Plaintiff’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction in a state law trademark dispute between competing jewelry stores. The Order in .jpg)