Newrez, which does enterprise as Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing, has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit towards a agency with a reputation “confusingly related” to the d/b/a it has used for years.
David George Novelli, a California resident, owns Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing LLC, in line with the U.S. District Court criticism filed this week in South Carolina. Novelli’s firm is registered in Charleston, South Carolina.
The plaintiff mentioned within the lawsuit that the defendant’s use of the Shellpoint identify results in “confusion in the neighborhood (authorized and in any other case) by creating the false and mistaken impression that the infringing entity is affiliated, related, or related to Newrez.”
Pennsylvania-based Newrez has used the Shellpoint identify since buying an entity utilizing it.
Newrez grew to become conscious of Novelli’s Shellpoint in early 2025, when the previous firm realized that authorized information and different mail have been going to the unsuitable group, court docket paperwork present.
The plaintiff claims it has not acquired “pre-litigation paperwork,” together with authorized calls for from debtors and their counsel. The confusion has impacted Newrez’s potential to resolve disputes, in line with the lawsuit.
Newrez mentioned it has used the commerce identify Shellpoint for greater than a decade in commerce in South Carolina and throughout the United States, whereas the proprietor of the opposite agency registered his firm in June 2023, court docket paperwork present.
The Rithm affiliate has spent “time, cash, and sources” advertising and selling services beneath the identify Shellpoint, so the existence of a agency going by an identical identify is “injurious to customers and owners,” the authorized submitting notes.
Newrez is asking for the federal court docket in South Carolina’s Columbia to grant it undisclosed damages and block the skin agency from utilizing the Shellpoint identify. The plaintiff additionally desires to get its fingers on any authorized paperwork which have been by chance despatched to the opposite agency, and have the defendant present an “accounting of all companies furnished and merchandise bought” beneath the Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing LLC identify.
Novelli couldn’t instantly be reached Wednesday.
Recent trademark infringement lawsuits filed within the trade embody a federal case Mortgage 1 Inc. filed in January towards a similarly-named firm that spelled out the numeral. Mortgage One Funding is the defendant in that case.
In addition, Loandepot sued two organizations in 2024 for allegedly having related logos to its actual property companies platform, mello.
The litigation towards Flashhouse LLC real-estate platform fello has been settled. The second criticism towards Melio, a cost platform app, was nonetheless pending on the time of this writing.
