Trademark

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VitalGo, Inc. v. Kreg Therapeutics, Inc., No. 16 C 5577, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2017) (Dow, J.).

Judge Dow granted in part defendants’ (collectively “Kreg”) Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss plaintiff’s (collectively “VitalGo”) claims and Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) motion to strike portions of its complaint in this…

The Northern District of Illinois continued its historically busy intellectual property docket in 2010. The most interesting statistic is a huge jump in patent filings this year — 250 patent cases filed this year, nearly double 2009’s 137 filings. And that is after a slight dip in filings from 2008 to 2009. I will discuss the 2010 filings in more detail in a post later this month, but even correcting for false patent marking suits, not all of which are included in the 250 filings because plaintiffs did not uniformly identify false marking cases as patent cases on civil cover sheets filed with the complaints, there was a significant increase in patent filings. That fits with my prediction in late 2008 that the Northern District’s new Local Patent Rules would drive cases to Chicago.*
Trademark cases continued their slow growth, showing a slight increase over 2009. Finally, copyright cases increased, after falling off sharply in 2009. This chart shows the number of yearly patent, trademark and copyright cases filed in the Northern District during calendar years 2006 through 2009 (data gathered from the Stanford IP Clearinghouse and Pacer):
Northern District IP FilingsCase Type
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Patent
126
141
151
137
250
Trademark
136
130
128
136
143
Copyright
194
123
81
41
4
* Click here for much more on the Local Patent Rules in the Blog’s archives.
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Continue Reading Northern District of Illinois 2010 IP Case Filings:

2008 was another busy IP year for the Northern District of Illinois. Once again, there was an increase in patent case filings, and the Northern District continues to be among the top five patent dockets in the country and the most active district court in the Seventh Circuit by far. Trademark cases were steady, with only two fewer filings than in 2007. And as with its patent docket, the Northern District’s trademark docket continues to be one of the five most active in the country. Finally, copyright cases continued a relatively steep decline. But despite the decline, the Northern District maintains one of the most active copyright dockets outside of California and the Southern District of New York. This chart shows the number of yearly patent, trademark and copyright cases filed in the Northern District during calendar years 2006 through 2008 (data gathered from the Stanford IP Clearinghouse):
2008 Northern District IP Case Filings
Case Type 2006 2007 2008
Patent 126 141 151
Trademark 136 130 128
Copyright 194 123 81
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Continue Reading N.D. Illinois 2008 Year in Review

Mike Atkins at the Seattle Trademark Lawyer has an interesting post — click here for the post — about a pending Chinese trademark infringement suit, in which plaintiff seeks monetary damages and a public apology to be published in newspapers. IP Dragon follows up Atkins’s post, explaining that an apology is a Chinese trademark remedy and that an apology is a punishment in a “face saving culture,” as IP Dragon describes China and Japan, the nationalities of the two entities involved in the suit. Click here for IP Dragon’s post.
But punishment or not, this raises an interesting question for US trademark law. It seems to me that a public apology (or acknowledgement of the infringement) would be a more powerful tool for the consumers that trademark law intends to protect than just monetary damages and an injunction. An acknowledgement of the infringement would warn consumers who might still unwittingly purchase items based upon the infringing marks after the injunction is in place. Maybe it is time to amend the Lanham Act.
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Continue Reading Should Apologies be Added to Trademark Damages?

The Northern District had 72 trademark cases filed during the first half of 2008. That is well on the way to meeting or exceeding 2007’s total of 138 cases — click here to read about the 2007 case filings. So, it looks like, as with patents, the Northern District continues to have an active trademark infringement docket. A difficult economy is not slowing the Northern District’s IP cases.
Thanks to Mike Atkins at the Seattle Trademark Lawyer for the idea of a mid-year status report. Expect a similar copyright mid-year report shortly.
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Continue Reading Northern District’s 2008 Trademark Infringment Filings Strong

There were 138 trademark cases filed in the Northern District during 2007, a 9% decrease from the 151 patent cases filed in 2006. Of those 138 cases, nearly half, 66, were disposed of during 2007.
A list of each case, the case number, the filing date and, where appropriate, the date the case was resolved are provided after the jump. Earlier this week, I did a similar post regarding patent filings (click here for the post). Look for a similar trademark post next week.
A hat tip to the Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog for its 2007 IP review series that pushed me to start my own review of 2007 IP cases.
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Continue Reading Northern District’s 2007 Trademark Case Filings Down 9%

Coilcraft, Inc. v. Inductor Warehouse, Inc., No. 98 C 0140, 2007 WL 2728754 (N.D. Ill. Sep. 13, 2007) (Guzman, J.).
Judge Guzman conducted a Fed. R. Civ. P. 72 de novo review of Magistrate Judge Cole’s report which recommended that the Court hold defendant in contempt for violating the Court’s permanent injunction limiting defendant’s use of plaintiff’s Coilcraft mark (click here for further discussion in the Blog’s archive). The Court adopted Judge Cole’s Report in its entirety and gave plaintiff fourteen days to submit a proposed order and proof of its attorneys’ fees and costs related to this motion. The Court also held that Judge Cole was not required to hold an evidentiary hearing before issuing the Report because there were no genuine issues of material fact. The dispute was governed by the language of the Court’s injunction which was not disputed. And the only issue was whether defendant’s advertisements, the contents of which were not disputed, violated the injunction – a matter of law.
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Continue Reading Evidentiary Hearing Not Required for Contempt Ruling Based Upon Undisputed Facts