A federal judge has denied Fair Isaac Corp.'s request for a new trial, leaving in place a jury verdict that favored the defendants in the credit-scoring company's lawsuit accusing rival VantageScore Solutions and national credit-reporting agencies Experian PLC and TransUnion LLC of trademark infringement and unfair competition.
U.S. District Judge Ann D. Montgomery also on Monday ordered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Fair Isaac's "300-850" trademark once the company's appeal is finished.
In November, a federal jury rejected an argument by Fair Isaac, which developed the FICO credit score, that the defendants' advertising and other tactics "deliberately confuse customers into purchasing their credit scores under the false belief that they are FICO scores, or that the scores they buy from these companies are used by their lenders to make credit decisions — neither of which is the case."
Montgomery said the jury verdict "was a wholesale, unambiguous rejection of Fair Isaac's central theory of the case — i.e., that one can legitimately claim trademark protection in the numerical range for credit scores."
