South Korean owned Sun Day Red attempted to register as a trademark a logo that is nearly identical to Tigeraire’s federally registered brand identity. When the Louisiana company objected to this, Sun Day Red aggressively submitted an anticipatory filing in a California federal court, setting up a costly legal battle between a local tech startup and a private equity giant.
BATON ROUGE, La., Oct. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Tigeraire, the Baton Rouge-based inventor of Air Accelerator® technology that creates airflow for personal cooling devices worn in sports and industrial settings, is fighting to protect its long-standing and federally trademarked logo and brand identity amid a federal court filing in California by Sunday Red, LLC, or Sun Day Red (SDR), a wholly owned brand subsidiary of TaylorMade, which, in turn, is owned by multi-billion-dollar South Korean private equity investment firm Centroid Investment Partners.
“Tigeraire’s logo and name pays tribute to our close collaboration with Louisiana State University—our first partners in this technology,” said Tigeraire CEO Jack Karavich. “This brand and logo are personal, and we have a right to protect it,” he added.
Despite objections from Tigeraire, the South Korean conglomerate and frontman Tiger Woods chose to go to market with a logo nearly identical to Tigeraire’s logo in April 2024, which has caused confusion in the marketplace and at major golfing events.
In September, Tigeraire filed a notice of opposition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requesting SDR’s trademark application be denied, as its logo very closely mirrors Tigeraire’s long-established registered mark of a striped, leaping tiger. The notice of opposition is not a legal filing or a lawsuit.
Prior to SDR offering products for sale to consumers, Tigeraire repeatedly attempted to negotiate an amicable solution, which SDR refused. Now, SDR has filed a suit against Tigeraire in federal court in California.
“Despite the obvious mismatch between a goliath multi-billion-dollar South Korean private equity firm fronted by an iconic, global superstar athlete and the Baton Rouge-based sports tech startup, Tigeraire intends to actively fight these manipulative legal maneuvers and prevail in court,” Latham added. “We are confident that the California court will agree that jurisdiction does not exist in California and dismiss SDR’s inappropriate lawsuit.”
Since SDR’s brand launch, Tigeraire has heard repeatedly from caddies of professional golfers, as well as high-profile personalities from ESPN, the Golf Channel, the PGA Tour, Greyson Clothiers, and many more who are confusing Tigeraire’s logo with Sun Day Red’s. At some golf events, participants have even wrongfully accused Tigeraire of ripping off Sun Day Red’s logo.
SDR’s legal filings also falsely claim Tigeraire’s entry into the golf market was a strategic attempt to capitalize on SDR’s shockingly similar logo or even worse, a plot to extort the SDR brand, which Tiger Woods first publicly debuted in 2024. In fact, Tigeraire first launched products for golfers in 2023 – an entry that took years of research and development to achieve.
“Our first products targeted football, which is a very small market — about 5 million customers globally,” said Karavich. “Golf offers greater opportunity for more people to use our technology, with roughly 70 million golfers worldwide who could benefit from our current line of products. Golf’s exponentially larger market is a vital piece of our business plan and always has been. But the brand confusion SDR is causing is already erasing our identity and stunting our business development. At this point, enough is enough.”
For more information or to schedule an interview with Tigeraire CEO Jack Karavich, contact Katie McKeogh at info@tegpr.com.
About Tigeraire
Tigeraire develops smart athletic, industrial, and military equipment technology that improves performance and safety. Innovative products that leverage their Air Accelerator® technology create an improved portable cooling experience for users in high-performance environments.
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SOURCE Tigeraire
