## Facts

- Holiday Inns operated and franchised hotels nationwide and owned registered “Holiday Inn” trademarks.
- Holiday Inns extensively advertised its toll-free vanity reservation number 1-800-HOLIDAY (1-800-465-4329) beginning in the early 1980s.
- Some callers misdialed by pressing “0” instead of “6” for the “O,” reaching 1-800-405-4329, an alphanumeric variant sometimes referred to as 1-800-H[zero]LIDAY.
- Defendants lawfully obtained and used 1-800-405-4329 as a reservations line for multiple hotel chains, including Holiday Inns, functioning as a reservations clearinghouse.
- Holiday Inns sued under the Lanham Act for trademark infringement and unfair competition, asserting that defendants diverted callers who intended to reach Holiday Inns by exploiting the complementary number.
- Holiday Inns had not registered “1-800-HOLIDAY” as a separate trademark or service mark.
- The district court entered injunctive relief prohibiting use of the 405 number and later issued a permanent injunction, but denied Holiday Inns enhanced costs and attorneys’ fees.

## Issues

1. Whether defendants’ use of the complementary toll-free number 1-800-405-4329 constituted trademark infringement or unfair competition under the Lanham Act based on likely consumer confusion.
2. Whether Holiday Inns was entitled to injunctive and monetary relief, including enhanced costs and attorneys’ fees.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s Lanham Act liability determination and vacated the permanent injunction.
- The court held defendants’ use of the complementary number did not violate the Lanham Act because any confusion resulted from consumers’ misdialing rather than defendant-caused misleading use.
- The court affirmed the denial of enhanced costs and attorneys’ fees to Holiday Inns.

## Legal Principles

- Lanham Act infringement and unfair competition require a likelihood of confusion attributable to the defendant’s use of a mark (or misleading conduct), not confusion independently created by a consumer’s dialing error.
- A vanity telephone number may function as a protectable designation in appropriate circumstances, but trademark law does not automatically extend exclusivity to complementary or misdial variants assigned and used as separate telephone numbers.
- Perceived unfairness alone is insufficient; liability turns on statutory elements such as defendant-caused confusion or deception regarding source, sponsorship, or affiliation.
- Accepting calls that arrive through misdialing, without passing off or misrepresenting affiliation, does not by itself establish actionable confusion under the Lanham Act.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that defendants’ operation of a lawfully obtained complementary toll-free number did not create Lanham Act liability where callers reached the line only by misdialing and defendants did not misrepresent the source or affiliation of their reservation services; the injunction was vacated and the denial of enhanced costs and fees was affirmed.


Holiday Inns, Inc. v. 800 Reservation, Inc., 86 F.3d 619 (6th Cir. 1996)