HARRISBURG, Pa. –7-Eleven Inc. is suing an independent convenience store operator in York County, Pa., for trademark infringement and dilution and unfair competition.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg Division, claims that Asfand Khan, owner of Super 7 Food Mart LLC in New Salem, Pa., “intentionally adopted the Super-7 name, mark and logo for convenience-store services to trade upon the fame and goodwill represented by 7-Eleven.”
In the court documents, 7-Eleven also alleges that Khan adopted the Arabic numeral “7” displayed in the color red “with an intent to knowingly copy the 7-Eleven name, mark and logo.”
7-Eleven is asking the court to order Khan to stop “using the Super-7 name, mark or logo or any other name, mark or logo consisting, in whole or in part, of the numerals ‘7’ or ‘11’ or the words ‘seven’ or ‘eleven’ for convenience stores or related products or services.”
It also is seeking to prevent Khan from using numerals or written-out numbers, any “design or other graphic intersected by another numeral or word, design or other graphic” or any color combination that includes red, orange, green ore white.
And 7-Eleven is asking the court to order Khan to pay “three times such damages as 7-Eleven has suffered as a result of the defendant’s acts of infringement, unfair competition and dilution, three times all profits wrongfully derived by the defendant from such acts and 7-Eleven’s costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.”
Finally, 7-Eleven is asking the court to order Khan “to deliver to 7-Eleven for destruction all labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptacles and advertisements in his possession bearing the name or mark Super-7 … and all plates, models, matrices and other means” of reproducing the logo.
Khan said the “7” on his signs has been there since he began leasing the property about nine years ago.
“I bought it like that, leased it,” he told The York Daily Record. “It's not my property.”
Khan said the company that owns the property is Choudries Inc. of Harrisburg.
Khan said that he has been “depressed” since he learned of the lawsuit late last week,
“I'm so mentally upset,” he told the newspaper. “If somebody had called me before, I would have taken it off right away.”
Khan said that he makes very little money from his store, not nearly enough to hire employees aside from his wife, or to hire a lawyer for the lawsuit.
In addition to working full-time at the store, he also has a job with a vehicle insurance company, he said.
“It's a billion-dollar company,” he said of 7-Eleven. “I'm a little guy, I work 18 hours a day. I have four kids.”
Khan said he planned to take the signs down in the next few days.
Dallas-based 7-Eleven, which operates, franchises or licenses nearly 10,500 7-Eleven convenience stores in North America and more than 56,000 7-Eleven c-stores in 16 countries, declined to comment to the paper.
Click here to view the full York Daily Record report and to see more images of the Super-7 logo.
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