A trademark dispute between U.S. clothing retailer Gap Inc. and Canadian online travel site G.A.P Adventures has hit the courts in both the U.S and Canada.
The U.S. apparel giant claims the Canadian adventure travel company is infringing upon its registered trademark and is causing confusion with its own brand.The dispute was initiated a couple of years ago when Gap asked G. A. P Adventures CEO Bruce Poon Tip to hand over the domain name www.gap.ca. Now it is working its way through both U.S. and Canadian judicial systems.

“They thought they could just bully us into giving it to them and then it escalated,” said Poon Tip. “It’s a classic case of a David and Goliath story.”

Gap claims its trademark is one of the most widely-known in the world and alleges G. A. P Adventures is trying to piggy back the “tremendous reputation and goodwill of the famous Gap trademark.”

Poon Tip argues there is no basis to those claims and that G. A. P is an acronym for Great Adventure People.

He started in 1990 that has since guided more than 85,000 travellers on trips around the world. In 2007, revenues topped $120 million.
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