Damages

May 15, 2019

Jury Awards Herff Jones Multi-Million Dollar Verdict Against Jostens for Interfering with Employment Contracts

Indianapolis, Indiana – Herff Jones, based in Indianapolis, Indiana won a multimillion-dollar case against its largest competitor, Jostens Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Herff Jones also won significant judgments against John Wiggins and Chris Urnis, former employees of Herff Jones distributor, Brent Gilbert of GradPro Recognition Products in the same case.

Jostens began negotiating employment agreements with Wiggins and Urnis prior to their leaving GradPro, despite their having strict noncompete agreements with GradPro, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit further claimed one of Jostens authorized representatives took at least five employees from GradPro in an effort to take away business from Herff Jones.

Jostens lost the suit as the jury found it conspired and stole confidential and trade secret information and interfered with Herff Jones’ employment contracts. The jury awarded nearly $1.9 million in compensatory damages against Jostens, Wiggins, and Urnis to Herff Jones, and another $580,000 to Brent Gilbert of GradPro. Punitive damages in the amounts of $650,000, $25,000, and $10,000 were also assessed against Jostens, Wiggins, and Urnis, respectively.

November 14, 2018

Indiana Cable/Satellite TV Litigation: Joe Hand Promotions Prevails in Suit for Unlawful Interception and Broadcast

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

Indianapolis, Indiana – In April of 2018, Attorneys for Plaintiff, Joe Hand Promotions, Inc., of Feasterville, Pennsylvania, filed suit in the Southern District of Indiana alleging that Defendants, The Anchor Lounge, LLC, d/b/a The Anchor Lounge, of Muncie, Indiana, and Randy Phillips, an individual residing in Delaware County, Indiana, infringed its rights in the “Ultimate Fighting Championship® 207: Nunes v. Rousey” (the “Program”). Plaintiff sought statutory damages, attorney’s fees, interest, and cost of suit. On October 25, 2018, the court entered default judgment in the Plaintiff’s favor.

Joe Hand is in the business of licensing and distributing pay-per-view sporting events to commercial locations. In their Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of their default motion, they claim that Defendants realized a profit of $1,155.00 by not paying the approximate licensing fee they would have paid if they had contracted with Joe Hand. Plaintiffs have filed multiple lawsuits in Indiana and across the nation against commercial establishments that have not contracted with them to exhibit pay-per-view programs, such as the Program in this case, seeking damages under 47 U.S.C. §§ 553 and 605.

While Plaintiff has received default judgments in two separate cases in Indiana this week, the Southern and Northern District Courts awarded the damages in two different manners. For instance, the Southern District in this case awarded Joe Hand the full requested amount of $41,570.00. The Judge in the Northern District, however, parsed out the specific amounts due under the statutes and reduced the award amount requested by more than half. This shows that judges are able to use their discretion in awarding damages and do not have to award the full amount requested just because the defendant did not appear, but they may if they believe the amount requested is sufficient.

October 31, 2018

Indiana Cable/Satellite TV Litigation: Default Judgment Entered Against Matey’s Restaurant & Bar of Michigan City, Indiana

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

South Bend, Indiana – In April 2018, Attorneys for Plaintiff, Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. (“Joe Hand”), of Feasterville, Pennsylvania, filed suit in the Northern District of Indiana alleging that Defendants, MBK Holdings, Inc. d/b/a Matey’s Restaurant & Bar, of Michigan City, Indiana, Bryan Konieczny, and Mark Kehoskie, both individuals residing in Indiana, infringed its rights in the “UFC 202: Diaz v. McGregor 2”, “UFC 203: Miocic v. Overeem”, “UFC 205: Alvarez v. McGregor”, “UFC 207: Nunes v. Rousey”, “UFC 208: Holm v. de Randamie”, and UFC 210: Cormier v. Johnson 2” (the “Programs”). Plaintiff sought statutory damages, attorney’s fees, interest, and costs. Default Judgment in favor of Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. was entered as of October 19, 2018.

Joe Hand specializes in exclusively distributing and licensing premier, pay-per-view sporting events, including the Programs, to commercial locations. Plaintiff worked with multiple locations in Indiana to license and distribute the Programs so the commercial establishments could show them to their patrons. Defendants did not contract with the Plaintiff to show the Programs, even though they could have and could have paid the accompanying licensing fee of approximately $1,680.00 for such. Joe Hand asserts that Defendants willfully intercepted the interstate communication of the Programs and unlawfully exhibited them to their patrons within their commercial establishment.

Plaintiff sought judgment against Defendants for wrongful actions violating 47 U.S.C. § 605, or alternatively, 47 U.S.C. § 553. They asked for the maximum statutory damages of $110,000.00 under 47 U.S.C. § 605, or alternatively, the maximum statutory damages of $60,000.00 under 47 U.S.C. § 553, plus attorney’s fees, interest, and costs. While the Judge did enter a default judgment against the Defendants, he did not enter the entire amount of statutory damages requested. Instead, he broke down the total damages of $42,002.00 as follows:

$10,080.00 in statutory damages under 47 U.S.C. § 605(e)(3)(C)(i)(II);
$30,240.00 in additional damages under 47 U.S.C. § 605(e)(3)(C)(ii);
$562.00 in attorney’s fees;
$400.00 in costs; and
66% post-judgment interest.

Many times in litigation, judges award the entire amount sought in the event of a default judgment, but the Judge in this case took the time to parse out damages under the statutes.

May 31, 2018

New Jersey Patent Litigation: Warsaw, Indiana Based Biomed Company Awarded $13 Million in Patent Case

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

New Jersey – In February of 2005, Attorneys for Plaintiff, Howmedica Osteonics Corp., of Mahwah, New Jersey filed suit in the District Court of New Jersey alleging that Defendants, Zimmer, Inc. of Warsaw, Indiana, Centerpulse Orthopedics, Inc. of Austin, Texas, and Smith & Nephew, Inc. of Memphis, Tennessee infringed its rights in United States Patent No. 6,174,934 (“the ‘934 Patent”) for “Non-oxidizing Polymeric Medical Implant”, United States Patent No. 6,372,814 (“the ‘814 Patent”) for “Non-oxidizing Polymeric Medical Implant”, United States Patent No. 6,664,308 (“the 308 Patent”) for “Non-oxidizing Polymeric Medical Implant”, and United States Patent No. 6,818,020 (“the ‘020 Patent”) for “Non-oxidizing Polymeric Medical Implant”. Plaintiff sought judgment for damages including interest and costs, treble damages, expenses, and attorneys’ fees.

Plaintiff is a corporation that develops, manufactures, and distributes orthopedic products, generally used in hip and knee procedures and other bone replacement procedures. Defendant is a corporation based in Warsaw, Indiana, that also focuses on products for joint and extremity replacements.

August 12, 2016

Seventh Circuit Rules on Sanctions for Vexatious and Obstructive Conduct by Attorneys for Porno-Trolling Collective

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

Chicago, Illinois – The Seventh Circuit ruled in the ongoing intellectual property litigation between Plaintiff Lightspeed Media Corp. and Defendants Anthony Smith et al.

Attorneys for Lightspeed Media Corp. have filed numerous lawsuits nationwide in an apparent attempt to extract quick settlements from individual users who would rather avoid litigating their pornography consumption in open court. After pushback from Defendants and their internet service providers, as well as the imposition of sanctions by the Central District of California in a similar case, the attorneys began to voluntarily dismiss some of the cases.

The litigation against Defendant Smith was one such dismissed lawsuit. After the dismissal, Smith filed a motion for attorney’s fees. The Southern District of Illinois found that the Lightspeed lawsuit had been frivolous, baseless, and “smacked of bullying pretense,” and imposed sanctions of $261,025.11, jointly and severally, against three lawyers for Lightspeed: Paul Hansmeier, John Steele, and Paul Duffy.

Much legal wrangling ensued. While pleading to the court an inability to pay the sanctions, Steele withdrew over $300,000 from an account that he shared with his wife. Hansmeier withdrew a similar amount from one of his accounts. Each of these transfers was apparently an attempt to conceal the funds from the court and Smith. Other actions, also apparent attempts to conceal the funds, were also taken by the attorneys. Following these actions, Hansmeier filed for bankruptcy and Duffy passed away.

The Seventh Circuit was asked to consider the appropriateness of the sanction against the three attorneys. It declined to hear the matter as to Duffy, stating that because he was deceased he was “beyond [their] jurisdiction.” The appeals court dismissed the appeal as to Hansmeier, noting that, in a liquidation proceeding under Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code, “only the trustee [of the bankruptcy estate] has standing to prosecute or defend a claim belonging to the estate.”

After a review of multiple instances of discovery misconduct, the appellate court held that the district court had acted within its discretion in imposing a discovery sanction against Steele for what it called a “pattern of vexatious and obstructive conduct” and “obviously egregious behavior.”

The appellate court then turned to the matter of the contempt sanction against Steele. Steele argued that the sanction was in fact criminal in nature, not civil. Thus, he contended, the district court had failed to abide by the enhanced procedural safeguards required for such a sanction.

The Seventh Circuit agreed. It held that, while “civil contempt may be imposed if proven by clear and convincing evidence, and without the full criminal procedural process,” imposing criminal contempt required more. Specifically, it required that the contemnor be “afforded the protections that the Constitution requires of such criminal proceedings.”

The appellate court also held that the fine, as ordered by the district court, was not “designed either to compel the contemnor into compliance with an existing court order or to compensate the complainant for losses sustained as a result of the contumacy,” as was appropriate for a finding of civil contempt. Instead, the sanctions that had been levied against Steele were punitive in nature, and “meant to vindicate the authority of the court.” Thus, they were properly deemed criminal sanctions.

Concluding that the procedures required under the Constitution for criminal contempt had not been applied, the Seventh Circuit vacated the contempt sanction.

June 17, 2016

Patent Law: Supreme Court Discards Rigid Test for Awarding Enhanced Damages for Patent Infringement

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

Washington, D.C. – A unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court this week gave district courts more flexibility to award enhanced damage in cases of willful patent infringement.

This decision consolidated two patent infringement lawsuits, Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., et al. and Stryker Corp. et al. v. Zimmer, Inc., et al, in which Indiana-based Zimmer, Inc. was sued. In each lawsuit, the proper interpretation of the statutory language of 35 U.S.C. §284, which permits district courts the discretion to award enhanced damages in cases of patent infringement, was at issue.

The exercise of that discretion is guided by the principle that enhanced damages are to be limited to cases of egregious misconduct. Prior to this week’s decision, it was also guided by a test elucidated by the Federal Circuit, as set forth in In re Seagate Technology, LLC. This test requires a patent owner to show two things by clear and convincing evidence: first, “that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent” and, second, that the risk of infringement “was either known or so obvious that it should have been known to the accused infringer.”

In a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that while the Seagate standard reflected an appropriate recognition that enhanced damages were to be awarded only in egregious cases, the test set forth by the Federal Circuit “is unduly rigid” and “impermissibly encumbers the statutory grant of discretion to district courts.”

The Court primarily took issue with the requirement that objective recklessness be found, holding that such a threshold “excludes from discretionary punishment many of the most culpable offenders, such as the ‘wanton and malicious pirate’ who intentionally infringes another’s patent–with no doubts about its validity or any notion of a defense–for no purpose other than to steal the patentee’s business.”

The Court also noted that the Seagate test improperly allowed ex post facto defenses in considering culpability. Specifically, under the Seagate test, an infringer could rely on a defense at trial, even if he had been unaware of that defense at the time he had acted. This, the Court held, ignored the general rule that culpability is to be determined by an actor’s knowledge at the time of the conduct in question.

Finally, the Court rejected the requirement that recklessness be proved by clear and convincing evidence, finding it to be inconsistent with §284. Instead, it stated that enhanced damages are no different from patent infringement litigation in general, which “has always been governed by a preponderance of the evidence standard.”

The Court vacated the judgments of the Federal Circuit in both cases and remanded them for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s opinion.

Although this was a unanimous opinion, Justice Breyer authored a concurring opinion, in which Justices Alito and Kennedy joined.

December 14, 2015

Indiana Copyright Litigation: Copyright Defendant Removes Lawsuit to Federal Court

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

Indianapolis, Indiana – An Indiana copyright lawyer for Defendant Wrightspeed, Inc. of San Jose California filed a notice of removal in the Southern District of Indiana on the basis of both federal-question jurisdiction and diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction.

Plaintiff Precision Rings, Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana had filed its lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court seeking declaratory relief, injunctive relief, unspecified damages and attorney’s fees. Among Plaintiff’s contentions was the breach of a nondisclosure agreement. Included in this alleged breach was the misappropriation of Plaintiff’s trade secrets, which involved the use or disclosure by Defendant of certain copyrighted drawings that Plaintiff had registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Defendant Wrightspeed contended that federal-question jurisdiction was proper and asked that the federal court in the Southern District of Indiana hear and decide all further matters in the litigation. Defendant asserted that the complaint arose under copyright law because Plaintiff’s complaint included a claim that would require construction of the Copyright Act. Consequently, subject matter jurisdiction rested exclusively in federal court.

Defendant Wrightspeed also asserted that diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction was a proper basis for the Indiana federal court to hear the litigation. The parties were completely diverse, it stated, with Plaintiff being a citizen of Indiana and Defendant being a citizen of both Delaware and California. Defendant contended further that, considering the potential damages, fees and costs, the amount at stake was well in excess of the $75,000 threshold necessary for diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction.

October 30, 2015

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Patent Infringement Litigation Involving Indiana-Based Zimmer

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

Washington, D.C. -The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals in two separate lawsuits, Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., et al., Case No. 14-1513, and Stryker Corp, et al. v. Zimmer, Inc., et al., Case No. 14-1520, on the issue of willfulness as a prerequisite for awarding enhanced damages in patent infringement litigation. The two cases were consolidated.

Under 35 U.S.C. § 284 of the Patent Act, a district court “may increase … damages up to three times the amount found or assessed.” Despite this language, which on its surface is permissive and discretionary, the Federal Circuit imposes a stricter test. For a district court to award enhanced damages under § 284, this test requires that a patentee prove by clear and convincing evidence that infringement was “willful.” A determination of willfulness requires a finding of both (1) an objectively high likelihood that the infringer’s actions constituted infringement, and (2) that this likelihood was either known or so obvious that it should have been known to the accused infringer.

The questions presented to the Supreme Court are:

1. Has the Federal Circuit improperly abrogated the plain meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 284 by forbidding any award of enhanced damages unless there is a finding of willfulness under a rigid, two-part test, when this Court recently rejected an analogous framework imposed on 35 U.S.C. § 285, the statute providing for attorneys’ fee awards in exceptional cases?

2. Does a district court have discretion under 35 U.S.C. § 284 to award enhanced damages where an infringer intentionally copied a direct competitor’s patented invention, knew the invention was covered by multiple patents, and made no attempt to avoid infringing the patents on that invention?

The Court granted motions by Independent Inventor Groups and Nokia Technologies OY, et al. to file briefs as amici curiae.

Practice Tip: In December 2014, the Federal Circuit overturned the decision of the Western District of Michigan to triple the damages awarded to Stryker, reducing the amount from $228 million to $70 million.

June 16, 2015

Indiana Copyright Law: Court Prevents Copyright Plaintiff Bell from Outmaneuvering Legal System; Orders Bell to Pay Almost $34,000 in Fees and Costs

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

Indianapolis, Indiana – Plaintiff and Indiana copyright attorney Richard Bell of McCordsville, Indiana was ordered by Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the Southern District of Indiana to pay almost $34,000 in attorney’s fees and costs to Defendant Charles Lantz, whom Bell had sued on unsupported allegations of copyright infringement.

Indiana copyright attorney Richard Bell, who is also a professional photographer, has sued hundreds for copyright infringement. The lawsuits began in 2011. At issue in Bell’s spate of litigation were allegations of unauthorized use of his copyrighted photograph of the Indianapolis skyline, which had been registered at the U.S. Copyright Office. The ongoing saga of this multiplicity of copyright lawsuits took an interesting, if unsurprising, turn last week.

According to an article in The Indiana Lawyer, Bell has said that most Defendants whom he has sued have settled early. Acknowledging the expense of litigation – and the relative ease of escaping litigation by simply paying a settlement without any finding of liability – Bell said, “A responsible lawyer and their clients, they obviously know it’s going to be far more expensive to try it.”

A current copyright-infringement lawsuit, filed January 8, 2013 by Bell, named forty-seven Defendants. Forty-six of those Defendants were dismissed from the lawsuit, including some who settled and some against whom a default judgment was issued. Default judgments of $2,500 were awarded in this litigation.

One Defendant, Charles Lantz, refused to pay for copyright infringement that he had not committed and hired Indiana intellectual property attorney Paul Overhauser (publisher of this blog) to defend him. In December 2014, Lantz’s perseverance paid off and the court granted an unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal of the litigation against Lantz. Last week, Lantz’s perseverance paid off again when Overhauser, on behalf of Lantz, sought and was awarded $33,974.65 in attorney’s fees and costs from Plaintiff Bell.

The court explained that, because Bell’s copyright litigation against Lantz had been dismissed with prejudice, Lantz became the “prevailing party” under the Copyright Act. Under 17 U.S.C. § 505, in any civil copyright action, the district court may award litigation costs, including attorney’s fees, to the prevailing party.

In evaluating whether to exercise its discretion to award such costs to Lantz, the court stated, “Defendants who defeat a copyright infringement action are entitled to a strong presumption in favor of a grant of fees.” The court looked to the Fogerty factors, which are so named after Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994), a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the shifting of costs in copyright litigation. These factors are nonexclusive and include: “(1) the frivolousness of the action; (2) the losing party’s motivation for filing or contesting the action; (3) the objective unreasonableness of the action; and (4) the need to advance considerations of compensation and deterrence.”

The court found that each of these factors weighed against Bell. It stated that Bell had possessed no evidence against Lantz that would prove either a conversion or a copyright claim. It also characterized Bell’s motivation for filing the lawsuit as “questionable,” noting that Bell had attempted to save himself “extensive filing fees” by improperly joining defendants and had “sued forty-seven defendants and then quickly offered settlements to defendants who were unwilling to pay for a legal defense.”

Regarding the third and fourth factors, the court held that the litigation was objectively unreasonable, given that Lantz had been sued “without any evidence to support the claims.” The court then turned to the last of the Fogerty factors, the need to advance considerations of compensation and deterrence. It noted that Bell had leveraged his status as a practicing attorney “to file meritless suits and to attempt to outmaneuver the legal system” (which was perhaps a hat tip to the now-famous opinion written by Judge Otis D. Wright III, who employed similar language against another copyright plaintiff widely regarded as a copyright troll).

Finally, the court was not swayed by Bell’s assertions that Lantz had failed to inform Bell that the wrong defendant had been sued and that Lantz had incurred unnecessary attorney’s fees. In response to these claims, the court noted that Lantz had “denied liability at his first opportunity.” The court also opined that, while defense counsel is not required to take the most economical defense strategy in defending a copyright lawsuit, it appeared that the “most economical approach feasible” may have been taken.

With all Fogerty factors weighing against Bell and no viable opposition permitting either an escape from fees and costs or a lessening of the amount, the court awarded to Defendant Lantz $33,974.65, the full amount requested.

Practice Tip: The Indiana Lawyer wrote an interesting piece regarding Judge Pratt’s order. That article may be viewed here.

July 23, 2014

Indiana Trademark Law: Trademark Infringement and Counterfeiting Defendants Held Liable for Both Damages and Plaintiff’s Attorney’s Fees

By Overhauser Law Offices, LLC

South Bend, Indiana – Chief Judge Philip P. Simon of the Northern District of Indiana ordered Defendants The Treasure Box, Inc. and Heather Hiatt, both of Elkhart, Indiana to pay statutory damages, attorney’s fees and costs to Coach, Inc. of New York, New York and Coach Services, Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida for trademark infringement and counterfeiting.

By way of summary judgment, the court had earlier determined in this Indiana trademark and counterfeit litigation that Defendants The Treasure Box and Hiatt were liable for the trademark infringement and trademark counterfeiting of Plaintiff Coach’s trademarks. The court’s summary judgment determinations also included a finding that “The Treasure Box and Heather Hiatt acted with knowledge and intent” that was sufficient to support enhanced statutory damages. In this opinion and order, the court fixed the amount due to Coach from Defendants.

Instead of requesting actual damages resulting from Defendants’ trademark infringement and counterfeiting within Indiana, Coach opted for statutory damages under §1117(c). It asked the court for damages of $100,000 for each of the 15 infringing marks, for a total of $1,500,000. The Treasure Box and Hiatt, unrepresented by counsel at the time, filed no response or opposition to Coach’s damages request.

The court first addressed the proper measure of damages. Statutory damages for trademark infringement and trademark counterfeiting under 15 U.S.C. §1114 are limited to:

(1) not less than $1,000 or more than $200,000 per counterfeit mark per type of goods…, as the court considers just; or
(2) if the court finds that the use of the counterfeit mark was willful, not more than $2,000,000 per counterfeit mark per type of good…, as the court considers just.

Because the statute provides little guidance regarding what constitutes a “just” award, the court referred to the relevant factors under the analogous statutory damages provision in the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §504(c). These considerations include: the profits reaped by the infringer; the revenues lost by the plaintiff; the value of the trademarks; whether the infringing conduct was willful; the duration of the infringement; and the potential deterrent effect on the defendant and others.

The court considered each factor in turn. It found that, because The Treasure Box’s operations were both brief and “even trivial” in scale, neither Defendants’ profits nor Coach’s lost revenue supported a large statutory damages award. Instead, the court cited Nimmer on Copyright for the proposition that statutory damages “should be woven out of the same bolt of cloth as actual damages.” “Statutory damages,” said the court, “should represent some approximation of actual damages and are not to represent a windfall to a prevailing plaintiff.”

In contrast, the factors of “value of the trademarks” and “willful conduct” weighed against Defendants. The court acknowledged that the Coach trademarks were valuable and noted that, in determining statutory damages, other courts had valued the trademarks at between $2,000 per mark and $30,000 per mark, for an average of approximately $14,000 per mark. Moreover, it characterized Hiatt’s infringement as having been pursued with “bold willfulness” with regard to her efforts to sell what she knew was knock-off Coach merchandise.

The last two considerations – duration of infringement and potential deterrent effect on Defendant and others – weighed against a large award of damages. The Treasure Box had operated for only three months, closing in late 2011. Such a brief term of infringement, as well as the court’s conclusion that Hiatt and the defunct The Treasure Box were now apparently beyond deterrence, militated in favor of lower damages. Regarding deterrence for others, the court stated, “Mom & Pop operators such as the Hiatts could doubtless be deterred from similar conduct by much less frightful sums than the $1.5 million Coach requests.”

The court concluded that an award of $3,000 per trademark for each of the 15 counterfeited trademarks at issue, for a statutory damages award of $45,000, was appropriate.

The court was also asked to award to Coach attorney’s fees of $14,780 pursuant to §1117(a)(3). This section permits a court “in exceptional cases” to award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. The court first noted the ambiguity inherent in the placement of §1117(a)(3) within the statute. Specifically, subsection (a) addresses recovery for actual damages, while subsection (c) allows a plaintiff to opt for statutory damages. Here, Coach chose an award of statutory damages under subsection (c), which raised the question of whether the provision for attorney’s fees under §1117(a)(3) could be applied.

The only Court of Appeals to have addressed the question was the Second Circuit. That court concluded that subsection (c) offers an election as to the basis for damages, but not an election regarding remedies, including attorney’s fees. Thus, it concluded, a court could award attorney’s fees in conjunction with an award for either actual or statutory damages. Chief Judge Simon adopted the Second Circuit’s reasoning. He also determined that the definition of an “exceptional” case – for example, one in which “the losing party was the defendant and had no defense yet persisted in trademark infringement” – was also met, given the willfulness of Defendants’ knowing sale of counterfeit Coach goods and that Defendants had no viable defense.

In addition to the statutory damages award of $45,000, the court awarded attorney’s fees of $14,780 as well as expenses and costs of $1,076.16 to Coach. The judgments were entered against Treasure Box, Inc. and Heather Hiatt jointly and severally.

Practice Tip: Chief Judge Simon noted that Coach had a history of requesting statutory damages that were considerably in excess of what was eventually awarded by the courts in other cases. In Coach, Inc. v. Paula’s Store Sportwear LLC, 2014 WL 347893 (D.N.J. Jan. 31, 2014), Coach requested $800,000 in statutory damages – $100,000 for each of eight counterfeited marks – at a shop from which four counterfeit Coach wallets and two counterfeit Coach handbags had been seized. In that litigation for counterfeiting, the court noted that the retail value of the six counterfeit items was less than $1500 and awarded $5000 for each of the eight marks that had been counterfeited, multiplied by the two types of goods, for a total statutory damages award of $80,000.