Money Matters, Simplified.
AT&T Suffers Setback in Lawsuit Against Verizon
AT&T Inc., lost the first round of the ongoing legal war against Verizon Wireless, when on Wednesday a federal judge denied a request submitted by the AT&T Inc. to stop its competitor Verizon from showing advertisement that compares its 3G network coverage with Verizon’s network coverage.
by Priyanka - November 19, 2009 - comments
AT&T had filed a lawsuit against Verizon earlier this month claiming that the ads content shown by the Verizon are misleading and untrue, and this amounts to deceptive trade practices. So they should be provided with temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction order against those ads by Verizon.
“This is just the beginning of the process,” said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel, adding that the company does not agree with the court’s decision and will most certainly pursue the case.
Verizon argued in its defense that it simply pointed out the true facts and nothing more.
Reflections by the federal judge
The U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten said while delivering his verdict that the ad by the Verizon might be “sneaky” and “clever” but it was “literally true”.
“The fact that people misunderstand the ads does not always mean the ads are misleading,” Batten said. “AT&T has failed to show a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits of any of its claims.”
The federal judge declined to give AT&T temporary restraining order against the Verizon Wireless and re-scheduled the hearing date on Dec. 16.
The new hearing date will provide the AT&T attorneys another chance to push their client’s point.
The contentious Verizon advertisement
The ad shows maps of US highlighting the areas where “3G” network coverage is available.
Whereas the blue areas, apparently depicting AT&T’s coverage, show a lot of empty space, the other map, where Verizon depicted its own coverage in red dots, is shown to have covered nearly all the United States.
With this commercial, Verizon has made fun of Apple Inc.’s much popular “There’s an App for That” spots flaunting thousands of application on iPhone that can be used.
AT&T’s initial response
AT&T in its attempt to defend itself had said that ads are totally misleading because there is coverage in the areas even when 3G service is not offered there.
At first, on Oct. 27, AT&T had contacted the Verizon Wireless and requested the offending ads to be taken off-air or modified. But no one responded to their request, so AT&T filed a lawsuit against the Verizon.
In response to the lawsuit, Verizon stated, “AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon's 'There's A Map for That' advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts."
Latest announcement by AT&T
On Tuesday, AT&T announced that it will upgrade the 3G network nationwide by 2011 to provide users “best 3G experiences”.
There’s a new ad comparing the 3G networks from Verizon and AT&T, in which AT&T claims that it offers better “3G experience” than Verizon Wireless.