Just months after Beau Box Real Estate expanded and rebranded its residential firm, its name is the subject of a trademark dispute in Baton Rouge federal court.
The case centers on whether the new name given to Beau Box Residential Real Estate—Audubon Real Estate Associates—might be confused with Metairie-based Audubon Realty.
In February, Box received two cease-and-desist letters from Audubon Realty’s Duris Holmes, threatening to file a lawsuit if Audubon Real Estate Associates didn’t stop using the name. So Audubon Real Estate Associates went to court first, asking a federal judge to decide whether any infringement had occurred, noting that it sells real estate in Baton Rouge and the 11 surrounding parishes, while Audubon Realty’s market is focused in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany and St. Bernard parishes.
In April, Audubon Realty filed a motion seeking to have the matter dismissed, but last month, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled in favor of Box’s firm. Audubon Realty has since filed counterclaims against Audubon Real Estate Associates, alleging that Box offered to buy Audubon Realty in April 2013. “Mr. Box specifically stated that he wanted to acquire the name ‘Audubon Realty,’” Holmes writes. Its owners declined the offer. Attorneys are now engaged in the discovery process.
Audubon Real Estate Associates is headquartered at Beau Box’s offices at 5500 Bankers Ave. In January, Tigue Bonneval told Daily Report the rebranding was intended to distinguish Beau Box’s residential presence from its commercial one. “The concern was that our residential work was being overshadowed by the huge amount of commercial work that we do,” Bonneval said at the time. “But we also don’t want people to get the wrong impression. We’re still a Beau Box company and we’re still headquartered here in Baton Rouge. This is just a rebrand and expansion.”
—Penny Font
