## Facts

- Alfa Corporation, an Alabama-based financial services company, owned federally registered trademarks incorporating “Alfa” and operated nationwide, primarily in insurance and reinsurance.
- OAO Alfa Bank and Alfa Capital Markets (USA), Inc., part of a Russia-based financial services group, used the “Alfa Bank” name and expanded operations into the United States.
- Alfa Corporation sued for trademark infringement and unfair competition under the Lanham Act and related common-law theories, alleging likely consumer confusion from defendants’ use of “Alfa.”
- In pretrial proceedings, defendants moved under Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 703 to exclude two plaintiff experts: a linguist (Constantine Muravnik) and an insurance executive (James M. Sweitzer).
- Muravnik proposed to testify about transliteration of the Russian name “Альфа‑Банк” and opined that “Alpha Bank,” not “Alfa‑Bank,” was the best English rendering, based on his linguistic expertise, a transliteration treatise, and a Wikipedia entry.
- Sweitzer proposed to testify, based on decades of industry experience, about insurance and reinsurance market practices and how defendants’ “Alfa” branding could affect confusion and market perceptions within that industry.
- Defendants argued Muravnik’s opinion was unreliable due to partial reliance on Wikipedia and challenged whether Sweitzer’s experience-based opinions would reliably assist the factfinder.

## Issues

1. Whether the linguist’s transliteration testimony satisfied Rules 702 and 703 when one of several consulted sources was Wikipedia.
2. Whether the insurance executive’s experience-based testimony about industry practices and likely confusion satisfied Rules 702 and 703.

## Decision

- The court denied the motion to exclude both experts.
- The court held Muravnik was qualified and used a sufficiently reliable approach; any concerns about Wikipedia’s reliability went to weight and cross-examination, not admissibility, particularly because the opinion was not based solely on Wikipedia.
- The court held Sweitzer’s industry experience provided a reliable basis and would assist the trier of fact; objections to the precision or completeness of his analysis concerned weight rather than admissibility.

## Legal Principles

- Under Rule 702, expert testimony is admissible if the witness is qualified and the testimony is relevant, will assist the trier of fact, is based on sufficient facts or data, and results from reliable methods reliably applied.
- Under Rule 703, an expert may base an opinion on materials of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the field, even if the underlying materials are not themselves admissible.
- The court’s gatekeeping function focuses on excluding unreliable expert evidence, not choosing between competing interpretations; methodological weaknesses are generally addressed through cross-examination and rebuttal evidence.
- An expert’s consultation of an internet reference such as Wikipedia is not categorically disqualifying; concerns about open-editability typically bear on the weight of the opinion, especially when the expert relies principally on specialized knowledge and other recognized sources.

## Conclusion

The court permitted both a linguist and an insurance-industry expert to testify in a trademark dispute, ruling that challenges to source quality (including partial reliance on Wikipedia) and to experience-based reasoning generally affect the credibility and weight of expert opinions rather than their admissibility under Rules 702 and 703.


Alfa Corp. v. OAO Alfa Bank, 475 F. Supp. 2d 357 (S.D.N.Y. 2007)