Lightning Labs and Tari’s lawyers requested modifying the court injunction to a temporary order — a temporary order that restricts a party from conducting specific actions — in a March 15 filing. Tari Labs, a blockchain software development startup, sued Lightning Labs for trademark infringement in December for the use of the name “Taro” – Lightning’s protocol that enables users to create commodities such as stablecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Judge William H. Orrick ordered a temporary injunction on Wednesday requiring Lightning Labs to suspend Taro development until the product has been suitably renamed.
Lightning Labs And Tari Are In Agreement
Tari claimed in its case that it and Lightning “compete in the same digital blockchain environment, provide comparable, if not identical, products and services that advertise to similar developers and customers, and appear to operate on comparable blockchain platforms.”
Some members of the open-source movement have criticized the case, claiming that trademark protection has no place within open-source and free software (FOSS). Tari Labs established Tari, a blockchain system focusing on digital assets, in April 2020 and later registered its name as a corporate trademark. Tari has an “Arabic or Italian etymology linked to a Mediterranean gold currency used in the Middle Ages,” according to court filings.
Lightning Labs unveiled Taro two years after Tari’s debut, after earning $70 million in a Series B fundraising round.
Last September, a preview version of the Taro program was launched, and the following version was on the approach of being announced. The injunction, however, means that Lightning’s Product development has been paused, and Lightning Labs must rename or appeal the ruling before proceeding.
