Alfa Corp. v. OAO Alfa-Bank, 475 F. Supp. 2d 357 (S.D.N.Y. 2007), was a trademark case brought to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case eventually allowed Wikipedia to be used as a legitimate source. The underlying trademark dispute was settled out of court. Background The case was a trademark dispute centered around the use of the name Alfa. Alfa Corporation, of Montgomery, Alabama sued the Russian company Alfa-Bank for trademark infringement. Alfa Corporation of Alabama is commonly known as Alfa insurance, while the Russian Alfa-Bank is part of the larger Alfa Group of companies. Alfa Corporation of Alabama is commonly known as Alfa Insurance. The company primarily offer insurance, but it also owns subsidiaries that provide services in the banking industry. Alfa-Bank is a unit of the Russian based finance company Alfa Group, which provides financial services, primarily in Russia and surrounding countries, but also in Europe and the United States. The name Alfa-Bank is a transliteration of the company's Russian name of Альфа-Банк. In the case, Alfa Insurance argued that Alfa Group's name would harm Alfa Insurance as it was likely to cause confusion between the two companies. Alfa Insurance argued that Alfa Group was committing trademark infringement. Evidence Plaintiff Alfa Corp. sought to introduce the expert testimony of Constantine Muravnik. Mr. Muravnik was to testify as to the transliteration of the Russian name into English. The defendants Alfa-Bank objected to the introductions of the expert witness and sought to have the testimony excluded. The plaintiff sought to introduce the expert testimony of Muravnik's regarding the proper transliteration of the defendant company’s name. Muravnik is a native Russian speaker who is now Senior Lector in Slavic Languages and Literatures specializing in Russian at Yale University. He has taught Russian since 1991 and also worked for over ten years as a Russian/English interpreter and translator. Muravnik holds Master's Degrees in Russian Linguistics and Literature from Moscow State University and in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Yale University; he is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Yale. The defendants object to Mr. Muravnik’s testimony on the grounds that his opinions should be excluded because they are based on "inherently unreliable" internet sources. The defendants cite both Mr. Muravnik's references to Wikipedia and his use of internet sites such as the online version of Pravda. The court held that the use of internet sources (in general