Indiana Intellectual Property Law News
On September 19, 2024, Judge Damon R. Leichty in the United States District Court of Northern Indiana granted Forest River, Inc. enhanced damages after a September 2023 jury found that inTech Trailers, Inc. infringed on its mountain design trademarks for recreational vehicles.
In 2021, Forest River, Inc., a major RV manufacturer, sued inTech for violating two of its trademarks- DELLA TERRA and the mountain design logo. In September 2023, a jury unanimously ruled in favor of Forest River, awarding $2 million and determining that willful infringement had occurred.
Forest River requested enhanced damages because InTech’s infringement was willful. The Court began its decision by quoting a famous case in which a trademark registration for THIRST-AID was found to be infringed by the slogan “Gatorade is thirst aid”:
The law’s primary aim is to ensure that trademark infringement is unprofitable. Sands, Taylor & Wood v. Quaker Oats Co., 34 F.3d 1340, 1349 (7th Cir. 1994). If a profit-seeking company is willing to pay ten cents for violating federal law so long as the business makes one dollar, then the law has not made willful trademark infringement “sufficiently unprofitable.” Id. at 1348. “[T]here is no upper limit on a discretionary increase in an award of profits.” 5 J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on Trademarks & Unfair Competition § 30:90 (5th ed. 2024). The original award is fixed in equity, see 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), and principles of equity dictate that a “wrongdoer should not be punished by pay[ing] more than a fair compensation to the person wronged,” Liu v. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n, 591 U.S. 71, 80 (2020) (quotations omitted). That said, oft “a remedy tethered to a wrongdoer’s net unlawful profits, whatever the name, has been a mainstay of equity courts.” Id.
In his order, Judge Leichty increased the jury’s award by $3,561,943, bringing the total to $5,561,943, along with prejudgment interest of $244,623, attorneys’ fees of $1,285,016, and costs of $51,933, resulting in a total judgment over $7,000,000.
The case was assigned to Judge Damon R. Leichty and in the U.S. District Court of Northern Indiana Case No. 3:21-cv-00645.