Trademark Litigation

Businesses and individuals need to protect and enforce their trademark rights to maintain the integrity of their brands as well as their rights of endorsement, association and affiliation. Perkins Coie's Intellectual Property litigators regularly help clients enforce their valuable trademark rights, and we defend our clients if questions or claims of infringement are raised against them. We have deep experience in the often complicated Lanham Act and state law issues that are encountered in prosecuting and defending trademark actions.

Our lawyers regularly litigate trademark, trade dress, dilution, unfair competition, false advertising, false association/false endorsement, gray market, and counterfeiting claims in courts across the country. We also work to protect our clients’ trademark portfolios before the Trademark and Trial Appeal Board (TTAB).  In addition, our attorneys have deep experience in domain name arbitrations under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy and litigation under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.  Our clients represent a broad array of industries, from Internet companies, such as search engines and video game publishers, to traditional businesses, such as mattress retailers and food service providers.

Following are some recent examples:

• In adidas America, Inc. v. Payless ShoeSource, Inc., U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, we obtained a victory for adidas on all trademark claims.  After 14 days of trial and two days of deliberations, a nine-person jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of adidas and awarded the company $304.6 million in compensatory and punitive damages, the largest jury verdict ever awarded in a trademark infringement action. Post-trial proceedings are pending.
  
  
• In Mele v. Davidson, U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, we successfully defended Blizzard through a trial on a trademark infringement claim.
  
  
• In Nintendo of America Inc. v. Nyko Technologies, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, we represented Nintendo in an action alleging patent and trademark infringement based upon the defendant's design, marketing and sale of a handheld game controller.  The case was favorably resolved, following expedited discovery, through a confidential settlement.
  
  
• In Classic Tents & Events v. Classic Party Rentals, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.  We successfully represented Classic Party Rentals in a trademark infringement action.  The plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case after our attorneys defeated a motion for a temporary restraining order.
  
  
• In Labor Ready Holdings v. Randstad, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, we successfully argued that the phrase "We Put People To Work" is descriptive of temporary employment services.