Scion Esports is addressing branding and identity confusion with "Scion Gaming"
We noticed a new brand popping up in the online space promoting gaming tournaments and video content production centered primarily around Call Of Duty: Warzone, using the branding “Scion Gaming”
The organization appears to be a new startup and at this time, we are hoping once they are aware of the brand overlap and near-certain identity confusion, they will willingly re-brand to something different. We have attempted to contact them and are awaiting a response. The organization in question does not have good published contact information so we do not know what to expect in terms of a response.
We are not associated with this organization in any way and want to avoid confusion as much as possible. We will continue delivering the same high quality content we always have, and it will always be branded with the official Scion Esports type, and/or the “Blade” logo, and will always link to content on the scionesports.com domain.
Here is the content of our notice to them:
FROM:
Scion Esports
3905 Gerstner Memorial Drive
Lake Charles, LA 70607
www.scionesports.com
(337) 478-3511
TO:
Scion Gaming
(Contact information not made public)
Notice to cease and desist inappropriate use of intellectual property and infringement on copyright.
Scion Esports is an esports organization that is funded by (and a registered service mark of) Lake Charles Toyota. We have been producing online and live gaming events in the southern United States for the last decade, and have maintained a consistent and growing online presence, as well as fielding professional teams in various disciplines across the esports industry.
It has recently been brought to our attention that within the last few months you began using and still appear to be using the name “Scion Gaming” to promote your online video game tournaments on your website and various social media.
You will no doubt will understand and agree this not only infringes on the legitimate use of our service mark and intellectual property but is also very likely to cause unacceptable confusion with our brand. Scion Gaming is a misnomer commonly used in the community to refer to us, so even though our official name is Scion Esports, for years we have felt it appropriate to protect that term as well.
Esports is a crowded space with extremely high volatility and organizational turnover, so we understand that there was certainly no malice in this infringement on our brand. However, we believe that with basic due diligence you would have discovered that it would be inappropriate to launch using the branding you chose. Even a brief google search would have uncovered a detailed account of our history and sufficient evidence to support our legitimate claim to the name. For your review we are also providing our business license and registry of service mark detailing our legal claim to the name.
We have also taken several steps to protect our brand over the years, one of which was securing several domains with names similar to ours. You seem to have already discovered this when you were searching for your domain, leading you to choose “scion-gaming” as your domain name as opposed to “sciongaming.” You’ll notice that even a google search for “scion gaming” returns just as many results for our properties as it does yours. We have fought and won legal battles in the past to protect our assets and continue to take our brand integrity quite seriously.
We respectfully request that you immediately cease using the branding “scion” in all your promotions and publications, vacate the domain “scion-gaming.com”, do not claim any other similarly branded domains, and do not begin any new public events using the “scion” branding. Attached you will find documentation supporting our claim and request that you relinquish all claims to the branding in dispute.
We will consider this matter closed and take no further action once you have vacated the domain scion-gaming.com and ceased using the “scion” branding in-person or online for your events and/or your organization.
We would like to have this issue behind us to start the new year, so please take the requested actions on or before December 31, 2020. We reserve the right to pursue further legal action in the future if you do not respond or choose not to comply with these requests.
Any questions regarding these matters may be addressed to Scion Esports organization administration at esports@lakecharlestoyota.com.
GG
Corey Tarver
Co-Founder, Scion Esports