The mark owner had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the defendant—a competing seller of equipment to the cosmetics industry—more than four years before filing suit, establishing that it knew of the infringement at that time.

Although cosmetics equipment company A.C.T. 898 Products, Inc. (“ACT”) convinced a jury that competitor W.S. Industries, Inc. (“WSI”) willfully infringed ACT’s “777” trademark for nail brushes, the jury also reasonably found that ACT’s claims were time-barred because knew or should have known about WSI’s use of the 777 mark more than four years before filing suit, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has decided. It was reasonable for the jury to conclude that ACT was aware of the infringement when it sent a cease-and-desist letter to WSI. Accordingly, the district court did not err in denying ACT’s post-trial motions challenging the verdict and requesting a permanent injunction. In addition, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying ACT’s request for a permanent injunction because ACT failed to establish that it would sustain irreparable harm (ACT 898 Products, Inc. v. WS Industries, Inc., May 17, 2019, per curiam).

Case date: 17 May 2019
Case number: No. 17-56046.
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.


_____________________________

To make sure you do not miss out on regular updates from the Kluwer Trademark Blog, please subscribe here.


Kluwer IP Law

The 2022 Future Ready Lawyer survey showed that 79% of lawyers think that the importance of legal technology will increase for next year. With Kluwer IP Law you can navigate the increasingly global practice of IP law with specialized, local and cross-border information and tools from every preferred location. Are you, as an IP professional, ready for the future?

Learn how Kluwer IP Law can support you.

Kluwer IP Law
This page as PDF

2 comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *