The suit follows legal actions filed last month by LL Bean against four companies that the e-tailer says are using adware to generate rivals' pop-up ads on its web site.
The complaints accuse retailers Nordstrom, JC Penney, Atkins Nutritionals and Gevalia Kaffee of trading on the LL Bean name through their use of pop-up technology from Claria.
The controversial behavioural marketing company is well known in the internet community for its software, which delivers pop-up ads on behalf of its clients to third party web sites without permission from the operators of those sites.
The software examines keywords, URLs and search terms in use on the user's browser and then selects which ads to display to that user. These ads often refer to competitors of the site being visited and are therefore highly controversial – to such an extent that numerous legal actions have been filed against both pop-up ad firms and their clients.
Prior to the four suits filed in May, LL Bean and Claria were already embroiled in litigation, following Claria's filing of a declaratory action asking the court to confirm, among other things, that its software does not infringe on any LL Bean trade mark.
Claria's new suit, filed on 3rd June, claims that LL Bean's actions are a "baseless resort to sham litigation, all part of its unsuccessful litigation strategy against Claria."
According to Claria, two of the companies sued by LL Bean have not used Claria for over 1.5 to 3 years. Of the remaining two companies - Atkins Nutritionals and Gevalia Kaffee - one has never been a Claria customer and the other has never purchased ad inventory in the apparel category for ads to be shown directly to LL Bean consumers.
"This move by LL Bean reveals that they are fearful they cannot win on the legal merits of their long-standing lawsuit against Claria," said Jeff McFadden, Claria's CEO. "Instead, they have chosen to wage a battle through PR campaigns and by attempting to intimidate their competitors through the filing of frivolous lawsuits. We are outraged by LL Bean's irresponsible tactics and have asked the court for damages relating to their reckless actions and anti-competitive and anti-consumer behaviour."
"We are not at all surprised that Claria would sue us in response to our efforts to protect our trade mark. Given the form of their business, Claria is naturally a litigious operation," Mary Lou Kelley, LL Bean's vice president of e-commerce, told ClickZ News. "LL Bean plans to vigorously press its trade mark infringement complaints, and we will be equally vigorous in defending against this latest manoeuvre by Claria."