aioTV Sues AT&T’s AIO Wireless

Tech start-up aioTV filed suit on June 11 in the U.S. District Court of Colorado against AT&T’s subsidiary Aio Wireless for allegedly infringing on its trademark.

The suit claims that when AT&T established the pre-paid wireless service, Aio Wireless, it “launched an aggressive advertising and marketing campaign of an `aio wireless’ service that infringes and completely appropriates Plaintiff’s previously established `aio’ trademark.”

The suit also alleges that the AT&T service causes confusion in the market that will hurt its business prospects. It asks the court for an injunction to stop Aio Wireless and unspecified monetary damages.

aioTV offers operators a white label video platform that allows them to integrate multiple sources of live, on-demand and freely available video content into a unified TV experience across connected devices.

For example, on June 6, it announced a licensing agreement with Corporación Medcom Panamá, S.A. that enables the operator to use the aioTV OTT platform to deliver their latest video service offering, PlayTV to over 3 million customers across Panama.

The suit says that aioTV has revenue of about $1.5 million and some 150,000 users.

In an email to B&C, an AT&T spokesman responded to the lawsuit by arguing that “because Aio Wireless is in a very different business than aioTV, we don’t believe there is any trademark infringement.”

The spokesman also pointed out that AT&T filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on June 6.That complaint asks for a for declaratory judgment ruling that no trademark infringement exists between aioTV and Aio Wireless.