New Economy Sparking Advertising Litigation

Over the weekend, there was an interesting article in the New York Times regarding the recent trend of companies filing lawsuits against each other over advertising claims.  If you're over 30, you are proabably a survivor the Coca-Cola versus Pepsi soft drink wars and now that phenomenon is cropping up across a variety of products in courtrooms near you.

Some of the more prominent fights that wound up in litigation this year included:

• UPS versus Fedex
• DirecTV versus Charter Communications
• Pantene versus Dove
• Campbell Soups versus Progresso Soups (one made with "TLC," the other with "MSG")

And recently, if you turn on a TV, you'll see that Verizon and AT&T are in a hotly contested "maps" dispute regarding the alleged coverage of their networks.  AT&T has sued Verizon alleging that "There are vast spaces of white in the map that depicts AT&T coverage, and the complaint centers on those white spaces.  It suggests to the viewer that not only is there no 3G coverage in that area, but there is no coverage at all."

Verizon responded, saying "AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts." 

We'll have to see how this turns out as the companies make their cases in filings and on our television sets.  (Incidentally, one of my phones is with AT&T and I've had no coverage problems.)

You can check out the New York Times article here.