A district judge initially dismissed the MTM/Amazon lawsuit in summary judgment, finding that Multi Time Machine had failed to demonstrate that the C Level Executive List search results had in fact confused consumers. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit court ruled that the search results could be confusing to consumers and the lawsuit could proceed. Then, a few C Level Executive List months later, the appeals court reversed its decision, finding that since Amazon had clear labeling of search results, ".
No reasonably prudent consumer accustomed to C Level Executive List shopping online would would probably be confused as to the source of the products." Confused about the initial confusion of interests? Back-and-forth reversals have attracted a lot of attention in legal circles. In the final decision, the court noted that the alleged confusion was not caused by the design of a competitor's mark, but by the design of a web page displaying MTM's mark and offering the competing product to the sale.
The case could be decided simply by assessing whether the C Level Executive List web page was likely to confuse a "reasonably prudent consumer" as to the origin of the goods. The court focused on the labeling and appearance of the product listings and the surrounding context on the screen displaying the results page, and they said they made their decision based on two C Level Executive List questions : Who is the relevant and reasonable consumer? What would he or she reasonably believe based on what he or she saw on the screen?