Kaiser Wins Trademark Injunction Against Patient Data Company

Isaiah Poritz reports:

Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. won a preliminary injunction in California federal court against medical records company SureFile Filing Systems for attempting to sell patient data using Kaiser’s trademarks.

Kaiser is likely to succeed on the merits of its breach of contract and common law trademark counterclaims against SureFile, Judge Mark C. Scarsi of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said.

Read more at Bloomberg.

Does the name “SureFile” sound familiar to you? It should. DataBreaches.net first started covering a dispute between Kaiser and SureFile back in 2012. SureFile wanted more money from Kaiser for the work it had done, and was pretty much telling anyone who would listen that Kaiser patient data remained at great risk because until Kaiser paid them an appropriate amount, the files with PHI were being stored in the vendor’s garage and on a desktop that wasn’t particularly secure.

The last time this site reported on the case was back in 2020. Now it seems SureFile is actually trying to sell patient data? How can this possibly be lawful?

For past coverage of the case on this site, search for SureFile. The 2020 post gives a bit of a recap that you may find helpful if you are first trying to understand the history.