San Francisco temporarily triumphs over OAK in airport name change sag
The ongoing saga between two of the Bay Area's largest airports took a turn on Tuesday in favor of San Francisco when a federal judge granted the city a preliminary injunction against Oakland. The Port of Oakland has to immediately stop inserting "San Francisco Bay" in front of Oakland International Airport in advertising, products and services.
San Francisco argued in a lawsuit that Oakland's rebrand implies that there is an affiliation, connection or association between OAK and the SFO. In Tuesday's ruling , a judge wrote that "San Francisco is likely to prevail on the merits on one of its core theories of liability, it will suffer irreparable harm if there is no injunction, and the public interest and the balance of hardships also favor an injunction."
The judge added that the court is skeptical that the Port would suffer similar hardship. The Port told the court it purchased signs for the airport with the new name, but with the preliminary injunction, it now cannot put them up. "The harm to the Port is minimal when it remains free to use the well-known name for the Oakland airport that it has used for 60 years," a judge wrote in the ruling.
The Port of Oakland wrote in a statement that although the judge agreed with the name implies affiliation, the ruling still denied two other claims that San Francisco made in the suit regarding confusion.
"The court order temporarily blocks OAK's new name on the basis of the third type of alleged confusion: that travelers may think OAK is affiliated with SFO. OAK is not associated with SFO, of course, but is rather a convenient and centrally located option for travelers throughout the Bay Area," the Port of Oakland wrote in its statement. "We are continuing to review the recent ruling and considering all available options."
San Francisco International Airport filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit against the Port in April over the name change, calling it "problematic, as it will almost certainly cause confusion among consumers and the public generally."
San Francisco filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in September and federal magistrate judge Thomas S. Hixson for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California published his decision on Tuesday. The lawsuit is ongoing.
