Entrepreneur Media Wants to Have Its Cake and Eat It Too

It seems Entrepreneur Media (EMI) just can't decide exactly where it stands on intellectual property. Or perhaps more accurately, they want to stand on whichever side serves them best at any given time.

EMI has gotten itself embroiled in back-and-forth trademark lawsuits with Ernst & Young (E&Y) over the phrase "Entrepreneur of the Year". E&Y owns the trademark for the phrase, which it has used for more than 20 years for its local, national and global award program. Entrepreneur magazine launched its own Entrepreneur of the Year contest earlier this year, prompting a cease-and-desist letter from E&Y.

EMI countered by filing suit in California court, not only for the right to use the phrase themselves, but to invalidate E&Y's claim to the trademark. The basis of EMI's claim? That the phrase is too generic and not subject to trademark protection.

E&Y came back with a lawsuit of its own, claiming that they have affirmatively defended the mark for more than 20 years, including an incident in 1994 when EMI was planning a program under the same name (which they canceled for other reasons, according to EMI).

The irony here is that EMI has a long history of enforcing its own claim to the generic word "entrepreneur". In 2003, a U.S. District Court ruled in EMI's favor in their trademark battle with EntrepreneurPR. As I wrote at the time in my article, "What's In a Name?":

EMI has aggressively gone after numerous other web sites and publications since 1999, including Carnegie Mellon University for their newsletter "The Entrepreneur", Entrepreneurs.com, Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year program, Entrepreneur Network, Entrepreneur Books, Young Entrepreneur, Asian Entrepreneur (now Asian Enterprise), and Publishing Entrepreneur (now Independent Publisher). Several backed down, rather than facing long and costly legal battles, but Smith and others have stood their ground. Smith's case is the first one to come to trial.

It seems EMI wants to have its cake and eat it too. In their suit against E&Y, they claim that the "Entrepreneur of the Year trademark is invalid and unenforceable because the phrase is generic." So let me get this straight... "entrepreneur of the year" is generic, but just "entrepreneur" on its own isn't? Someone please explain this logic to me.

This whole situation is unfortunate, because EMI actually puts out a pretty decent magazine. I even have friends who write for them. I've even appeared on their radio show. But in the process of over-aggressively defending their claim to the generic word "entrepreneur", not only are they doing damage to the entrepreneurs they go after, they also make themselves look foolish with their hypocritical stance in the E&Y lawsuit.

In a similar but unrelated incident, EMI is also suing former editor Rieva Levonsky, alleging she "stole" its Franchise 500 ranking concept. Lesonsky is now editor-at-large at AllBusiness.com, where she planned to create a "Franchise 300" ranking. For the whole story, see "Entrepreneur Sues Former Editor".