Archive for the ‘Trademarks’ Category

Reasonable Royalty Damages in Trademark Cases

Friday, August 23rd, 2013

IP Expert Witness icon

An important element in many trademark infringement actions is the determination of any damages that have been suffered by the plaintiff.  A specific approach to the expert calculation of damages is the topic of the latest article by David Drews, CLP – President of IPmetrics –  published this month in Intellectual Property Today.

The article, “Reasonable Royalty Damages in Trademark Cases: A Modified Georgia-Pacific Framework for Setting Royalty Rates,” highlights how the various factors used to determine reasonable royalty compensation in patent infringement disputes can be effectively utilized in trademark / trade dress infringement litigation via appropriate alterations that take into consideration the differences between trademarks and patents.

At the federal level,  once liability is proven, the Lanham Act provides for the recovery of defendant’s profits, actual damages sustained by the plaintiff and the costs of the action, subject to principles of equity.

Although US Trademark Law does not explicitly list a “reasonable royalty” as a remedy in trademark infringement matters, this award based on Patent Law as compensation for infringement damages has been recognized as an appropriate alternative in Trademark cases for decades.

This makes sense from an economic perspective since royalty rates have long been utilized as pricing and value indicators for intellectual property of all kinds, including trademarks.

However, as a reasonable royalty is not appropriate in every trademark infringement situation.

The article is available in the print and online versions of Intellectual Property Today.

IP case law database now covering US cases

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

By: Fernando Torres, MSc

darts-ip

Previously, we wrote about the Europe-based Darts-IP intellectual property search database.  This interesting service now encompasses US cases in its search universe and is set to be a valuable tool for in-house trademark counsel, trademark attorneys, and even academic research purposes.  Specifically, the USA case law database includes:

Administrative decisions:

  • All recent TTAB cases (precedential & non precedential) published on TTAB platform, all important precedential TTAB cases

Judicial decisions:

  • All relevant published and unpublished cases since 2002, all relevant published cases prior to 2002

As far as the patent side of the equation, the resources there include:

Patent – USA – Case law database

Administrative decisions:

  • All recent BPAI cases (precedential & non precedential) published on BPAI platform, all important precedential BPAI cases are being collected

Judicial decisions:

  • All relevant published and unpublished cases since 2002, all published cases prior to 2002.

Seems like a powerful place to research, so here’s the link: http://www.darts-ip.com/world/.