Al Cass, Inc. v. American Way Marketing, LLC (19-cv-11125).

Al Cass makes and sells lubricating oil for musical instruments under the 201cAL CASS FAST 201d mark 2013 I fondly remember the distinct smell of their valve oil from my trumpet-playing days in elementary school. The company has been selling this oil for sixty years, after developing the formulation at the request of jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and have used the AL CASS FAST mark since the Sixties. For the past thirty years or so, the oil was sold in these bottles, which Al Cass asserts to be its own trade dress.

American Way Marketing (AWM) also makes and sells valve oil (including, at least in the past, Al Cass oil) and in early 2018 offered to buy All Cass, which Al Cass declined. Al Cass asserts that while the offer was being made, an AMW affiliate filed a federal trademark application for 201cAL CASS FAST 201d for lubricant oil for use with brass or metal musical instruments. AMW expressly abandoned this application in September following a demand to do so by Al Cass, but subsequently filed an application for 201cSUPERSLICK FAST. 201d Al Cass says that AMW sells their oil in bottles that are too similar to the Al Cass bottles.

Al Cass further alleges that AMW has told distributors and customers that Al Cass was no longer selling its FAST oil, saying that the Al Cass oil 201cis currently unavailable and future ETA is unknown. 201d Al Cass brings counts for federal, state and common law trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, false advertising, under the Lanham Act and state law, and unfair business practices.