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Entries for tag: Lanham Act

Judge Connolly issued a post-trial opinion in a false advertising case this week that contained another interesting bit of damages arcana under the Lanham Act.

AI-Generated, displayed with permission

The trial in CareDx, Inc. v. Natera, Inc., C.A. No. 19-662 (D. Del. July 17, 2023), seemed to go great for the plaintiff with the jury finding 9/10 of the defendant's advertisements were false and awarding $21.2 Million in compensatory damages and $23.7 Million in punitive damages. As we say in Delaware, "that's a lotta crabs"*

It all went tails up in post-trial briefing however, when the defendant moved for JMOL of no damages. The court began by summarizing the elements of a Lanham Act claim in the Third Circuit

1) that the defendant has made false or misleading statements as to his own product [or another's]; 2) that there is actual deception or at least a tendency to deceive a substantial portion of the intended audience; 3) that the deception is material in that it is likely to influence 3 purchasing decisions; 4) that the advertised goods traveled in interstate commerce; and 5) that there is a likelihood of injury to the plaintiff in terms of declining sales, loss of good will, etc.

CareDX, at 3-4 (emphasis added) (quoting Pernod Ricard USA, LLC v. Bacardi U.S.A., Inc., 653 F.3d 241,248 (3d Cir. 2011))

The highlighted factor is the interesting one. You see, actual deception is ...

These are not Pelotons.
These are not Pelotons. Jonathan Petit, Unsplash

In competitor cases, parties sometimes include Lanham Act claims alongside patent claims. That's what happened in Peloton Interactive, Inc. v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc., C.A. No. 20-662-RGA (D. Del.), where both sides brought patent and Lanham Act claims or counterclaims.

Peloton moved to dismiss defendant Icon's Lanham Act counterclaims, which alleged that Peloton had made various false and misleading statements concerning things like whether the Peloton bike was the "first of its kind" and unique among its market, along with statements about Peloton music offerings.

Peloton argued that Lanham Act claims are subject to a higher pleading standard, relying on an old E.D. Pa. case from long before the Supreme Court's decisions on this issue in Twombly / Iqbal:

Peloton urges the Court to apply an “intermediate” standard that first appeared in Max Daetwyler Corp. v. Input Graphics Inc, 608 F. Supp. 1549, 1556 (E.D. Pa. 1985). The Court held, “[i]n litigation in which one party is charged with making false statements, it is important that the party charged be provided with sufficiently detailed allegations regarding the nature of the alleged falsehoods to allow him to make a proper defense.” . . . ICON argues that the standard articulated in Max Daetwyler is inappropriate because it was decided before Twombly and Iqbal. . . . Additionally, there is disagreement within district courts in the Third Circuit as to its applicability. . . .

Judge Andrews declined to apply the heightened standard, quoting

In a recent Daubert ruling in CareDx, Inc. v. Natera, Inc., C.A. No. 19-662-CFC-CJB, Judge Connolly excluded the opinion of the plaintiff's expert regarding "corrective advertising damages," in part because it was based on "vague, undocumented, and back-of-the-envelope . . . estimates" by the plaintiff's CEO. The Judge granted the defendant's motion to exclude the expert's testimony under both Rule 702 and Rule 403, indicating that not only did the expert's opinion fail to satisfy the Daubert hallmarks for admissible expert testimony, it would also confuse the jury and be prejudicial because it "would essentially place the imprimatur of an expert on [the CEO] Maag's undocumented and dubious damages calculation."