A federal judge has blocked political news site NOTUS from rebranding as The Star on the eve of its launch.
Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. granted a temporary restraining order in a trademark lawsuit brought by The Washington Star against NOTUS, finding that readers are likely to be confused by the similar names.
In U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Alston ordered NOTUS to halt plans to unveil a new website Wednesday and also forbade the publication from advertising the rebrand until he determined whether a preliminary injunction would be appropriate. He stopped short of requiring NOTUS to remove all existing references to The Star from its website and other materials.
A hearing on the preliminary injunction is scheduled for July 22, court records show. A spokesperson for NOTUS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Washington Star sued NOTUS last week for trademark infringement, asking a judge to order NOTUS to stop using the name and pay damages. The Washington Star, led by Dovid Efune, the publisher of the conservative New York Sun, said it had been planning its own launch.
At the crux of the lawsuit lies a single question: will the names cause confusion? The Washington Star argues yes, citing news articles and social media posts that conflate The Star’s launch with the revival of D.C.’s long-defunct conservative-leaning daily newspaper. NOTUS argues no, pointing to a survey it commissioned of consumers who read U.S. politics news. The survey found none of them thought The Star was affiliated with The Washington Star. Plus, lawyers for NOTUS argued, “Star” has been used in hundreds of newspaper names dating back decades.
In court Tuesday, lawyers for each publication argued they had more to lose. Lawyers for NOTUS noted the publication had spent $1.3 million on pre-paid advertising through July, in addition to the millions of dollars already invested into the new website, sponsorships, advertisement and launch events. Attorneys for The Washington Star claimed that allowing NOTUS to rebrand would kill the newspaper’s revival before it truly began.
“If you allow them to rebrand, we’re dead,” said Laurin Mills, a lawyer representing The Washington Star.
NOTUS, owned by D.C. media mogul Robert Allbritton, announced its plans to expand coverage and rebrand as The Star last month. Many figured that the name was an homage to his family’s former ownership of The Washington Star – a paper that stopped printing in 1981.
The Washington Star began posting articles on Substack weeks after NOTUS announced its expansion, ending a 45-year publishing drought. Lawyers for NOTUS seized on The Washington Star’s inactivity as evidence its claim to the trademark was weak, pointing out that The Washington Star existed only as a single webpage with links to third-party reporting until after NOTUS announced its rebrand.
Court filings also offered an inside look into the communications between the two publications leading up to the legal battle.
A buyer on behalf of NOTUS first approached The Washington Star on March 2, court records show, offering to purchase the trademark for $5,000. Robert Garson, an attorney for The Washington Star, replied that Efune valued the name at $10 million. (Garson represented President Donald Trump in an unsuccessful $50 million lawsuit against ex-Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward).
As negotiations continued, the buyer disclosed that she was working on behalf of Allbritton and explained his family connection to The Washington Star, but added that he had already secured the rights to multiple other names the paper could use if unable to reach a deal. Ultimately, on March 24, court records show NOTUS offered $50,000 for the name – $9.5 million shy of Efune’s assessed value. Efune rejected the offer.
Another NOTUS representative – this time the CEO of an Arlington-based private investment firm – reached out the next day, records show, requesting a meeting with Efune. In a declaration filed in court, Efune said he and the representative spoke about the two publications potentially partnering. The representative even proposed a name trade, Efune said: The Washington Star in exchange for The Washington Sun — a name NOTUS had already applied to trademark.
But the deal once again fell apart as Efune remained insistent that the trademark was worth millions.
“We see great value in this historic title, both in terms of overall recognition in the market and also the specific strong and valuable brand identity going all the way back to 1850,” Efune wrote in an April 6 email included in court filings. “I’m sure you also know of its storied history as Ronald Reagan’s favorite newspaper. We genuinely view this value to be well into the millions…”
Ten days later, NOTUS announced its rebrand as The Star.
Federal trademark records show NOTUS secured the rights to The Washington Herald, The DC Star and The Washington Sun. So, why The Star?
In a court filing, attorneys for NOTUS said the acronym, short for “News of the United States”, has proven inaccessible and distracting to the broader audience beyond political insiders the news organization is now trying to reach. The Star is the antidote for the confusion, the attorneys wrote, because “Star” has been associated with news organizations for over 100 years. Notably, the explanation of the name choice does not mention the Allbritton family’s ownership of the defunct Washington Star.
“The name also fit NOTUS’ ethos, as THE STAR represents the ‘north star of journalism,’ which is to be non-partisan and accurate,” the attorneys wrote.
