Comet ML Files Lawsuit Against Perplexity AI In US District Court For Trademark Violations
Maintains that the rival company’s products were similar and confused the consumers
New York software company, Comet ML Inc, has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup, Perplexity AI Inc, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, for violating its trademark.
Founded in 2017, Comet is a platform for artificial intelligence (AI) processes, including agentic and large language model development, experiment tracking, dataset management and collaboration tools.
The company registered ‘Comet’ and ‘Comet ML’ trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2019. It was to host and maintain computer programs for machine learning (ML) and AI.
However, Perplexity was founded in 2022. In February 2024, it announced plans to sell a product ‘Comet’, describing it as a “browser for agentic search.”
In its lawsuit Comet maintained that Perplexity’s “forthcoming infringing product” was highly similar to Comet’s platform, since both were based on ML, worked with AI-supported decision-making systems and were designed to harness AI to increase efficiency.
Early this year, Comet sent a cease-and-desist Perplexity but elicited no response.
Comet’s lawsuit stated that on 29 April, a court in Düsseldorf, Germany ordered Perplexity to stop using the term ‘Comet’ regarding AI for web browsers and ML.
The complaint read that the existence of “confusingly similar variants,” proved that Perplexity was liable for trademark infringement under Section 32(1) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1114(1), and for unfair competition and false designation of origin in violation of Section 43(a) of the 15 U.S.C.A. § 1125(a), and unfair business practices under California Business & Professions Code § 17200.
The company sought an injunction to stop Perplexity from using the ‘Comet’ trademark and demanded damages, attorney fees and costs.
Comet ML was represented by Eleanor M. Lackman and Marissa B. Lewis of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP.