She’s sexy and calls her business “Health and the City,” but a martial- arts trainer who works to turn stressed-out New Yorkers into urban warri ors is ready to take on Go liath to prove she’s no Carrie Bradshaw wan nabe.
When Jennifer Cas setta found her call ing coaching urban ites on fitness and nutrition – and came up with a catchy Web do main to match last year – she had no idea she’d be facing more agita than her average client in the form a trade mark battle with HBO.
Cassetta, 31, said she was shocked to learn the entertain ment giant had thrown down the gauntlet in June, accusing her of trying to ride the coattails of the wildly popular show “Sex and the City.”
“I’m not selling whatever they sell. I’m not doing a movie about sex and Carrie Bradshaw,” Cassetta told The Post yesterday as she braces for HBO’s Nov. 18 deadline to file its formal opposition to her trademark application.
“I thought it was a catchy phrase, with the main theme of what I’m trying to do. My clients know that. They have a hard time staying healthy in the city,” Cassetta said.
Cassetta teaches and maintains an office at the World Martial Arts Center on West 14th Street and uses her site healthandthecity.net to advertise her services to “overstressed and overworked people who have put their health on the side.”
In an effort to avoid an expensive legal battle, Cassetta said she entered discussions with an HBO lawyer who gave her two options – change the name to “Health in the City” or withdraw her application for the trademark altogether.
“I asked, ‘Why would I do that?’ I’m supposed to roll over and die because I’m afraid of HBO?” said Cassetta, who has already paid $484 for the trademark-application fee and explained that the alternate name already is owned and could cost her more than $10,000.
” ‘In’ or ‘and,’ I didn’t think it was that much of a difference,” Cassetta said. “I think it’s unfair. They know I’m a small-business owner and I don’t have the money to fight them.”
Asked whether HBO intends to file the formal opposition with the US Patent and Trademark Office, HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson said, “We just don’t discuss legal issues in the press.”
HBO routinely challenges trademark applications that contain the words “and the city.”