You may have never heard of video streaming service Oculu, but the company is still concerned that you will confuse it with similarly named 3D headset maker Oculus. To that end, Oculu has brought a trademark infringement lawsuit against Oculus in the Central District for California, alleging "false designation of origin, trademark dilution, and unfair competition."

The lawsuit, filed by Kristensen Weisberg, LLP and Daniels, Fine, Israel, Schonbuch & Lebovits, LLP, notes that it filed its trademark for "streaming of audio and video by means of the Internet" in 2010, well ahead of the creation of the Oculus in 2012. Furthermore, while you might think the products are inherently different and share little risk of market confusion, Oculu's lawsuit alleges that "streaming audio and video by means of the Internet" is also part of Oculus' product roadmap for the Rift headset. While Oculus has indeed shown demos of the Rift being used to show movies in a virtual theater, we're personally unaware of any streaming video aspect being part of the plan for the Rift at the moment.

“Unfortunately, [Oculus co-founder Palmer] Luckey decided that he would simply add an 's' to Oculu's registered trademark and call his product and online video distribution network, Oculus. It could have adopted any number of trademarks." Furthermore, the suit alleges that Oculus reached out to Oculu about buying the streaming company's domain name, because "they know the names are inherently too close and confusing."

When made aware of the suit by Ars Technica, Oculus said it had no comment at this time. The company recently secured an additional $75 million in funding to bring its Rift prototype to market as a consumer product.