BA 226
William Bloom
01/26/2012
Current Events Presentation: Team Quest Lawsuit A current event that is of significant interest is the lawsuit between Dan Henderson and Matt Lindland over trademark rights to the famous Team Quest Fight Club. This lawsuit is an interesting battle over trademark rights, copyright infringement, and unfair competition. Who owns a name or a trade mark? Who has rights or ownership of its use? Is it the “senior” user of a name or the person that files for its copyright? Who has more claim to it? This case is also of particular interest because Team Quest started right here in Portland, Oregon. The lawsuit was filed by Dan Henderson – one of the original Team Quest founders. According to Henderson, he started the Team Quest with Randy Couture in 1999. Henderson stated he and Couture were the “senior” users of the Team Quest mark, including the Team Quest “fist” logo, as well as the names Team Quest and Team Quest MMA Fitness. Henderson claims …show more content…
According to Tracey Lesetar , an attorney and columnist for MMA website sherdog.com, Lindland not only asked the California court to dismiss the claims, he countersued Henderson for the very same reason Henderson was suing him. Lindland claims that he came back from the 2000 Olympics (in which he competed in wrestling) and found Henderson and Couture’s “Performance Quest” gym was closing down. The three decided to keep helping each other training for upcoming MMA fights and dubbed themselves “Team Quest”. Henderson moved back down to California. Lindland said he very soon after began a “Team Quest Wrestling” for youth and later that year started “Team Quest Fight Club” with Couture and trainer Robert Follis. Lindland claims Henderson was wearing the Team Quest shirts in his bouts in Japan. Later Lindland registered the trademarks with the USPTO. Eventually Follis and Couture sold or transferred their interests to