Truist hits back at Truliant's copyright infringement suit

Truist Financial has fought back against a North Carolina credit union that’s suing the new company over its name, claiming copyright infringement.

The $470 billion-asset Truist — created on Dec. 6 when BB&T merged with SunTrust Banks — argued that Truliant Federal Credit Union does not own trademark rights to names that begin with the prefix “tru,” since at least two dozen financial institutions also have names with those letters.

“The truth of the matter is that no one can exclusively own the term ‘tru,' ” Richard Keshian, an attorney for Truist, said in a court document filed in federal court Wednesday.

“In this crowded field, consumers can easily differentiate among these various uses of ‘TRU,' ” Keshian said.

According to Truist, among the banks and credit unions with similar names are TruPoint Bank in Grundy, Va.; Trustmark in Jackson, Miss.; and TrueCore Federal Credit Union in Newark, Ohio.

In addition, about 200 other entities outside of the bank and credit union sectors use the “tru” prefix in their names, Keshian said.

Truliant representatives did not immediately respond to CU Journal's request for comment on Wednesday evening.

Truist also gave a tiny hint about what its heretofore-undisclosed logo will look like — nothing like Truliant’s blue-and-yellow logo.

Truist "has recently provided its planned new logo and visual identity treatment to [Truliant] under a non-disclosure agreement because the logo has not yet been revealed,” Keshian said. “The marks, as actually used in the marketplace, could not be more dissimilar not only in terms of appearance, sound and meaning but also logo, color scheme, design and stylization.”

In previous court documents, the $2.6 billion-asset Truliant said the Truist name would be harmful to its business because the companies compete head to head in several markets. Truliant operates four branches in its hometown of Winston-Salem, N.C., where Truist maintains a large number of employees and where BB&T had been based. Truliant also has seven branches in Charlotte, N.C., where Truist is headquartered. The credit union said in a June 17 court document that the Trust name could "confuse consumers ... and undermine the trust we have built in our institution."

"We profoundly disagree with the merged bank’s extraordinary counter claims,” Truliant President Todd Hall said in a statement following Wednesday's news. “This is a clear and intentional appropriation of Truliant’s name and brand equity by a directly overlapping geographic competitor.”

Hall added that the bank’s filing fails to address one of the credit union’s main concerns: that consumers may mix the two entities up when no visual branding is present to differentiate them. Truliant also addressed these issues in early November when it reiterated its claims against the bank.

“Our claims are not just simply related to the presentation of Truist’s visible logo,” he said. “We continue to foresee difficulty as our brands are applied in non-visual applications throughout the evolving digital marketplace. We strongly believe consumers will be led down the wrong path while interacting with voice tech, digital assistants, machine learning, and artificial intelligence – especially considering our market overlap and the similar strategies employed to develop digital experiences.”

Hall said the credit union intends to pursue its suit further but did not provide details on next steps.

Truliant had not filed a response to Truist’s motion as of Wednesday afternoon. U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Webster has scheduled a pretrial hearing on Jan. 22 at the federal courthouse in Durham, N.C.

This story was updated at 11:13 A.M. on Dec. 19, 2019.