Posts Tagged: "false advertising"

Hologic Wins $4.8M in Jury Verdict After Judge Determines Assignor Estoppel BarredPatent Invalidity Defenses

On July 27th, a jury verdict entered in the District of Delaware awarded $4.8 million in lost profit and reasonable royalty damages to Marlboro, MA-based medical technology company Hologic Inc. after the jury determined that two of its patents were infringed by Redwood City, CA-based medical device company Minerva Surgical. At issue in the case was a technology marketed by Minerva to treat women dealing with abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB).

Alibaba Files U.S. Trademark Infringement Suit Against Cryptocurrency Firm Alibabacoin

Alibaba alleges that defendant Alibabacoin (ABBC) Foundation has engaged in an unlawful scheme to misappropriate the Alibaba name in order to raise over $3.5 million in cryptoassets from investors. The complaint alleges that scheme was a part of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that is neither registered nor approved by U.S.

The Commodores Trademark Lawsuit and its Effect on IP in Entertainment

Grammy Award winning funk, soul band The Commodores—whose hit singles include Easy and Brick House—recently won a trademark infringement lawsuit against its ex-bandmate and founding member Thomas McClary, who left the band in 1984. The right to use The Commodores’ name and trademarks belongs to a company run by founding members William King and Walter Orange, a Florida appellate court has ruled.

How Consumers Can Protect Themselves from False Advertising in Retail

In September 2014, a California woman named Linda Rubenstein sued Neiman Marcus over allegedly misleading price tags at their “Last Call” line of stores. In the case, Rubenstein alleged that the company misled consumers at its Last Call stores with prices tags that listed a cost “compared to” a fictitious higher price, designed to lure shoppers into thinking they are getting a deal. In December of 2014, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero dismissed Rubenstein’s suit with leave to amend, for failure to state a claim and failure to allege fraud with particularity. Just last week, her putative class action revived when a Ninth Circuit panel agreed that a lower court prematurely tossed her case.

FTC cracking down on bogus health products

The federal regulatory agency in charge of assessing health claims for goods and services sold to American consumers is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. government’s main consumer protection agency. In the past few months alone, the FTC has taken action against a number of bogus health products which may seem obviously suspicious at first blush but have been successful in defrauding well-meaning consumers out of their money.