A federal judge in California has awarded the Educational Testing Service and one of its clients a $300,000 judgment in their lawsuit against a college student who used the firm’s copyrighted materials in a seminar to prepare minority students to take graduate-school entrance exams.
ets and the Graduate Management Admission Council filed the lawsuit against Randolph M. Sydnor and his company, Education Preparation Service, for using their trademarks in advertisements and infringing copyrights on published tests that Mr. Sydnor copied and used in his seminars.
Mr. Sydnor, who claims the ets is “picking on” him, offers seminars to prepare students for the gmac’s Graduate Management Admission Test and the Graduate Record Ex-aminations, both of which are developed and administered by the ets.
U.S. District Judge Pamela Ann Rymer issued a default judgment in the case, Educational Testing Ser-vice v. Randolph M. Sydnor, and did not rule on its issues because Mr. Sydnor never appeared, a court spokesman said. She issued a permanent injunction barring Mr. Sydnor from using the firm’s copyrighted materials and trademarks, and cited him for contempt for his failure to comply with previous court orders to hand over materials, to appear for a deposition, and to stop using the copyrighted materials.
According to Mr. Martin, ets has filed more than a dozen lawsuits in the last 10 years over copyright infringement.
In 1984, the firm was awarded $1.5 million in a case involving a foreign-language institute in Taiwan.
“We are vigilant,” Mr. Martin said. “Any time we learn of trademark or copyright infringements, we take action.”
Mr. Sydnor said he has no money and will fight the decision “to the end."--br
