IP Law Daily, TRADEMARK NEWS: Ghost tour chain sues Annapolis rival for service mark infringement, defamation, (Jun 25, 2025)

By Steven Melendez

US Ghost Adventures says Tours & Crawls, and owner Mike Carter, created a website confusing similar to its mark.

US Ghost Adventures, LLC (USGA), and its owner Lance Zaal, sued rival Tours & Crawls, LLC, and that company's owner, Mike Carter, alleging federal service mark infringement and cybersquatting, false advertising, defamation, and tortious interference in an ongoing dispute between the two businesses (US Ghost Adventures, LLC v. Tours & Crawls, LLC, No. 6:25-cv-00048-NKM (W.D. Va. filed Jun. 18, 2025)).

USGA operates ghost tours across the country and owns a registered service mark for US GHOST ADVENTURES for a variety of services, including "conducting guided tours of historic sites," according to the complaint in the case. The company also runs the website usghostadventures.com.

In March 2024, USGA alleges, Carter registered and created the similarly named website usaghostadventures.com, encouraging potential ghost tour customers to use a locally owned and operated tour rather than one run by a chain like USGA. A "Find a Tour" page on the website included locations around the country where USGA operated, even if there weren't any competing tours listed there, according to the complaint. USGA alleges that's evidence of a "bad faith plan to use their infringing domain and infringing 'USA Ghost Adventures' website to target and harm all USGA tours and locations they were aware of."

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) subsequently ruled that Carter registered the website in bad faith, according to the complaint. WIPO ordered that the website by transferred to USGA.

After the WIPO ruling, Carter set up a similar localghostadventures.com site, which USGA says deliberately uses the "Ghost Adventures" part of its mark to pull in search traffic.

USGA alleges that Carter and his company also registered the Maryland trade name "Annapolis Ghost Adventures," which USGA says carried "the same bad faith intent."

Defamation and false advertising. USGA and Zaal allege that Tours & Crawls and Carter have made "countless false, defamatory, and deceptive claims and statements" about them as well as "false or misleading descriptions of fact in commercial marketing that misrepresents the nature, characteristics and quality of USGA’s goods, services and commercial activities in online forums, online marketing channels, social media platforms, and direct communications with customers, prospective customers, business partners, and prospective business partners."

That includes blog posts with derogatory comments about national ghost tour operators and USGA in particular, according to the complaint. The posts include allegations that USGA itself infringed marks and manipulated Google listings and reviews, as well as claims that Zaal is "under legal and civil scrutiny for his questionable, deceptive, fraudulent, if not illegal business practices," according to the complaint.

Tours & Crawls and owner Carter have been part of "a collective smear campaign by other ghost tour companies" around the country to attack USGA and Zaal online, according to the complaint. That includes online allegations that USGA itself deliberately uses names for its local tours that are similar to existing businesses and that it steals intellectual property from competitors, according to the complaint.

Tortious interference. After an almost year-long process, USGA secured listings in a tourism directory run by the nonprofit Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County (Visit Annapolis) for a ghost tour and a haunted pub crawl, according to the complaint.

And on March 1, 2025, the company entered an agreement with Destination Travel Network, an ad network that works with Visit Annapolis, where USGA would get two "featured" listings on the Visit Annapolis directory. But on May 7, those listings abruptly disappeared, which USGA alleges is the result of "false, misleading and defamatory statements" made by Carter.

Claims, relief and damages. The complaint asserts claims for registered trademark infringement, cybersquatting, common law infringement, unfair competition, and false advertising under the Lanham Act, common law infringement, unfair competition, defamation, false light statements, and tortious interference under Maryland law.

USGA and Zaal asked the court to order Carter and his company to pay up to three times the profit earned in conjunction with the alleged infringement, as well as "actual damages and profits or statutory damages up to $100,000" per infringing internet domain name under federal cybersquatting law.

They also seek any profits earned through false advertising, as well as costs and fees, along with damages including punitive damages for the allegedly false statements.

Additionally, they asked the court to bar further use of the names “Annapolis Ghost Adventures,” “Local Ghost Adventures,” and the “localghostadventures.com," and to order Carter and his company "to issue a formal public retraction and engage in corrective advertising to rectify their false, deceptive, and misleading statements about Zaal and USGA."

The Case is No. 6:25-cv-00048-NKM.

Judge: Moon, N.

Attorneys: Christine Si Ward (Woods Rogers PLC) for US Ghost Adventures, LLC.

Companies: US Ghost Adventures, LLC; Tours & Crawls, LLC

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