Half Price Books, the used book chain with more than 75 locations, has sued Barnes & Noble.com for naming one of its online stores "Half-Price Books." The Dallas-based chain claims that B&N's use of its name causes confusion.
In a letter to Half Price customers, company president and CEO Sharon Anderson Wright wrote, "The confusion started in May when... after the name change we began to hear from customers, employees and others who were confused and in some cases concerned. They wondered if we'd been purchased by, or formed a partnership with, Barnes & Noble, Inc."
Wright continued, "We've spent the past 30 years working to build our name, Half Price Books, and our reputation. Regrettably, the only action left to stop Barnes & Noble.com from using our name to sell their books was to ask a court to order them to stop."
B&N.com Stays on Nasdaq
In some good news for B&N.com, the purchases of its stock by Barnes & Noble and Bertelsmann helped boost the share price of the e-tailer's stock over the $1 mark for 10 consecutive days, enough to put the company back into compliance with Nasdaq requirements, the company reported in a recent Securities & Exchange Commission filing. In August, B&N.com was notified that because its stock price had sold below $1 for 10 days, it faced de-listing from the exchange.
Since it began buying B&N.com shares October 1, B&N had purchased more than 1.5 million shares of the e-tailer as of November 14, while Bertelsmann had acquired 922,500 shares. The stock purchases have upped the combined total the two companies own of B&N.com's stock from 71% to 72.1%.
