ORLANDO, Fla. – A California company that manufactures water pipes, commonly known as bongs, has filed a federal lawsuit against a Orlando gas station for allegedly selling counterfeit smoking products inscribed with the company's trademarked brand name.
Sream, Inc. is licensed to use the trademark ROOR on glass water pipes it sells in the United States, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
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"ROOR branded products embody a painstaking attention to detail," the lawsuit states. "It is precisely because of the unyielding quest for quality and unsurpassed innovation that ROOR branded products have a significant following and appreciation amongst customers in the United States and internationally."
According to the lawsuit, the owner of the Kwik Stop convenience store and gas station at 4510 Clarcona Ocoee Road sold counterfeit water pipes containing the ROOR name.
By infringing on the trademarked name, the gas station owner caused deception in the marketplace and diverted potential sales of authentic ROOR water pipes, the lawsuit states.
Sream, Inc. is seeking $15,000 in damages and a court order banning the Kwik Stop owner from selling counterfeit water pipes.
The gas station's owner, Selina Khanom, did not immediately return a phone message left by News 6.
"We don't sell water pipes. We're a gas station," an unidentified sales clerk at Kwik Stop told News 6 by phone.
Photographs attached as exhibits to the trademark infringement lawsuit appear to show bongs displayed in the Orlando convenience store.
Although water pipes can be used to smoke marijuana, the glassware is legal to sell in Florida because it is also used to smoke tobacco.
In 2013, the Florida Legislature passed the so-called "bong ban" law that made it illegal for retailers to knowingly and willfully sell such paraphernalia for drug use.
Sream, Inc. and ROOR International BV, a company based in the Netherlands that licenses the ROOR trademark to Sream, has filed more than 300 federal trademark infringement lawsuits nationwide since 2015, court records show.