Nike Trademark Loss Stands, but Fees Award Nixed by 3rd Cir. (Correct)

A district court failed to justify making Nike Inc. pay $5 million in attorneys fees after Lontex Corp. won $791,000 for the athletic giant’s infringement of its “Cool Compression” trademark, the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday.

While a jury had deemed Nike’s infringement willful, the court impermissibly relied on policy considerations related to the expense of litigation in a “David-and-Goliath” case, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found. But the three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s trademark finding and award, rejecting Nike’s argument that it had established fair use of what it claimed were descriptive terms.

The precedential ...