3TAPS, INC.'S ANSWER AND COUNTERCLAIM Case No. CV-12 ...

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728engines like Google.159. Finally, craigslist’s claim that 3taps has infringed its trademarks also is objectivelybaseless. 3taps’ craiggers’ site clearly mentions “craigslist” only to describe the source of theonboarded data and—as stated in paragraph 67 of craigslist’s Complaint—to advertise itself tousers as “better than craigslist!”. There is no likelihood that consumers would be confused intobelieving that there is any association, affiliation, endorsement, or sponsorship by craigslist. As3taps informed craigslist in its March 13, 2012 letter discussing craiggers, “[t]here is no attempt tosuggest that these services are an extension of, or are endorsed by craigslist. To the extent thatsource data is factually identified as having been on-boarded via a particular source (be it eBay,Amazon, etc.) the attribution is meant only to be descriptive and avoid confusion – which is a clearcase of fair use and is consistent with the spirit of trademark law.” Moreover, 3taps explained that“[i]f there is a circumstance where you think a 3taps use of the word ‘craigslist’ is not purely andfactually descriptive, we would be pleased to consider any changes you suggest to clarify thepresentation.” Rather than discuss these issues with 3taps, craigslist instead filed baselesstrademark and related claims against 3taps.160. craigslist’s subjective intent in sending the aforementioned cease and desist lettersand/or filing lawsuits is to force competitors to exit the Relevant Markets.161. As discussed above, craigslist knows that the platform 3taps provides is crucial toany competitor in the search market. By blocking access to 3taps’ platform, craigslist hopes toinhibit competition in search and maintain its dominance in the Relevant Markets.162. In this respect, craigslist’s anticompetitive scheme already has been successful. Forexample, after craigslist brought this baseless suit against 3taps, several of 3taps’ search enginepartners exited the downstream market, and craigslist was thereby able to avoid competition withthese competitors, such as HuntSmartly, Invatory, for-sale-alert.com, list-alert.com, Tempest,jumpoffcampus.com, wishcan.com, and SnapStore. Unless craigslist’s anticompetitive scheme isenjoined, other specialized search engines, such as JeBoom, PadMapper, and Lovely, likely willsuffer the same fate. Similarly, the anticompetitive scheme would prevent any other newinnovators from entering the Relevant Markets through use of 3taps’ pre-staged indexed data.3TAPS’ ANSWER AND COUNTERCLAIM59CASE NO.: 12-CV-3816-CRB