United States - MetLife Enjoins Use of METBANK Logo
In MetLife Inc. v. Metropolitan Bank 
(05 Civ. 3960, June 22, 2005), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a motion by MetLife Inc.’s motion for a preliminary injunction enjoining Metropolitan National Bank from using the METBANK logo at a planned retail banking street-level office in Manhattan in close proximity to the MetLife headquarters building.
MetLife, who claimed use of their METLIFE logo since 1968, 
initiated a trademark infringement action seeking to permanently enjoin MetBank from using the METBANK logo it adopted in 2004 (notwithstanding that MetBank adopted the word mark METBANK in 1999).
In finding a likelihood of confusion between the marks, the Court addressed each Polaroid factor, with the prior mark’s strength and the similarities of the marks receiving the most attention.
The Court found MetLife’s blue logo in sans-serif font distinctive, given (i) its strong origin-indicating qualities; and (ii) MetLife’s aggressive marketing of the logo (including MetLife’s spending over $100 million in marketing on the MetLife brand in 2004 alone). The court noted that "Both utilize sans-serif fonts, with text printed in blue." And, as can be seen, while the defendant used a deeper shade of blue, "the difference in shade is not so notable that a consumer or passerby would readily differentiate between MetBank's blue and MetLife's blue."
The Court found the parties’ logos highly similar because of their market and geographic proximity; both parties were engaged in consumer retail banking and the MetLife building would be visible from MetBank’s street-level office. While MetLife did not submit evidence of actual confusion, convincing survey evidence indicated that consumer confusion was likely. The Court concluded that MetBank exhibited bad faith in adopting its logo, since
“the similarity between the parties’ marks is such that it strains credulity to believe that neither [Metropolitan National Bank nor the logo designer] were not consciously influenced by the MetLife logo.”
The Court dispensed with MetBank’s claim that, in the context of banking, its MetBank word mark had priority over MetLife by pointing out that the issue was not whether the MetBank word mark was confusingly similar to the MetLife logo, but whether consumers were likely to confuse the parties’ logos. The court was also not persuaded that the three-and-a-half month period between announcement MetBank’s upcoming street-level office and MetLife’s initiation of litigation constituted undue delay.
The Court granted the preliminary injunction after finding that irreparable injury may be presumed from a likelihood of success on a trademark infringement claim.
