Infringing Company’s President Gets $2 Million Penalty Nixed

A scientific products company’s president escaped a more than $2 million penalty after the Fourth Circuit held July 24 he wasn’t personally liable for his company’s trademark infringement.

Life Technologies Corp., based in Delaware, was correctly awarded a contempt order against Krishnamurthy Govindaraj, the president of a Maryland company that took the same corporate name, the appeals court said. But Govindaraj couldn’t be held personally liable when he was never named a defendant in the suit, or served with the complaint, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said.

Life Technologies sued Govindaraj’s company for trademark infringement, and ...