Telegram drops 2-year ‘Gram’ trademark lawsuit

Telegram has abandoned its lawsuit against a Florida firm over the use of the ‘GRAM’ token trademark. The encrypted messaging service provider will have to pay for all the legal costs incurred by the defendant.

Telegram filed the lawsuit against Lantah LLC in May 2018. The Florida-based company claimed to have formed months before Telegram’s blockchain efforts began and that it intended to issue its own GRAM tokens. It argued that it had priority over the GRAM trademark.

Telegram filed a lawsuit against Lantah at the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California, with the court granting the company a preliminary injunction that barred Lantah from using the trademark. The presiding judge ruled that Telegram had started using the trademark commercially before Lantah.

However, two years later, Telegram has finally dropped the lawsuit, reports Bloomberg Law. The company was allowed to drop the suit without prejudice, which allows it to possibly refile the lawsuit in the future. The court also vacated the preliminary injunction against Lantah that barred the Florida company from using the GRAM trademark.

Telegram will also have to pay the attorneys’ fees incurred by Lantah over the course of the past two years fighting the lawsuit. Since Lantah didn’t publicly disclose the fees incurred, the two companies will negotiate and settle privately.

Telegram dropped the lawsuit just two months after it announced that it would be discontinuing its support for the TON blockchain testnet. The Pavel Durov-led company finally bowed to legal scrutiny from U.S. regulators, over two and a half years since launching TON.

In June 2020, Telegram settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), paying an $18.5 million settlement fee. The company also had to pay back 70% of the investment in its GRAM token, with the SEC deeming the token sale as illegal.