Three Houses Settle Infringement Suit

Three major educational and scientific publishers announced a settlement in a trademark and copyright infringement lawsuit filed in May against the Pelican Bookshop, a Florida-based book e-tailer. The publishers, Pearson Education, John Wiley and Thomson Learning, charged Pelican with illegally importing and reselling foreign editions of a number of educational titles published by all three houses that were not intended to be sold in the U.S.

The settlement includes an undisclosed payment by Pelican to the three plaintiffs as well as an agreement that the e-tailer will stop selling non-U.S. editions of the three publishers' books.

According to the lawsuit, Pelican Bookshop displayed cover images of U.S. editions of the books on its Web site (and on other book retail sites), offering the books for cheaper prices than the U.S. editions. Once the books were purchased, Pelican delivered the illegally imported, lower-quality (cheaper paper, less color, no supplementary electronic material) foreign editions to customers. Disappointed customers directed their complaints to the three publishers.