The Brentwood campus of Mount Saint Mary’s University has been hit with a trademark infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court from its namesake in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
The Brentwood school at 12001 Chalon Road changed its name from “college” to “university” in January, which included changes of signage, letterhead and websites, along with registering the revised name with state and federal agencies. This better reflected its many graduate-degree programs and enrollment, which is about 2,000 students, most of whom are women.
The lawsuit, filed June 17, alleges that the Maryland school twice asked the Los Angeles school to cease using its name in their online classes offered across the country under the banner of “Mount Saint Mary’s University Online.”
For this, Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg is seeking damages based on profits the Los Angeles school gains from the online classes.
The lawsuit said the Los Angeles school “unlawfully trades on the good will and reputation,” even though Mount Saint Mary’s of L.A. has been classified by the national Carnegie Foundation as a university since 1993 but didn’t look into changing the school letterhead until early 2014.
Debbie Ream, director of communications and marketing at the Los Angeles school, offered the school’s 500-word press statement saying “the case has no merit.”
The statement also reveals that Thomas H. Powell, the Maryland school’s former president who left the school in March, wrote to administrators in L.A. congratulating the “university” name change, as well as writing to consider his “permission granted” in that the “campuses will share a very noble name.”
“While Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles was not seeking permission from Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland – as no permission was needed – but rather reaching out to that institution’s president as a courtesy, Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles appreciated the gesture of goodwill,” Ream said in a statement.
With regard to the complaint about owning and using the URL msmu.edu, the statement said that the Maryland school, which has the current URL msmary.edu, had “every opportunity” to re-register the URL name change in 2011. Instead, Mount Saint Mary’s of Los Angeles took the URL msmu.edu in Oct. 15, 2014.
“We are surprised and saddened that an institution of higher learning, particularly a fellow Catholic institution, would elect to allocate limited resources to pursue litigation,” Ream’s statement said. “We look forward to a swift and amicable resolution so that our two institutions can focus on what we do best — serving our respective students and communities.”
The all women’s school in L.A. also augmented their title to include the word “Saint” spelled out in full. In 2004, the Maryland school changed its name to Mount St. Mary’s University. The Emmitsburg institution owns the trademarks Mount St. Mary’s University, Mount Saint Mary’s University, The Mount and the acronym MSMU, known as “The Marks.”
Both the Maryland and California schools are small Catholic liberal arts universities. Both schools also previously shared the name “college” for over eight decades.
There is also a school in Newburgh, New York, named Mount Saint Mary College.
Mount St. Mary’s University was founded in Emmitsburg in 1808. Mount Saint Mary’s University of Los Angeles, primarily a women’s college, was founded in 1925.
