True Religion Wins $864M Suit

In a case that has made fashion and internet law history, Judge Harold Baer Jr. of the Southern District of New York has granted True Religion Apparel, Inc. an 863.9 million dollar award in a default judgment against cybersquatting counterfeiters. 

 

Based in China, the counterfeiters operated a network of 282 Web sites, with false addresses like "TrueReligion4Cheap.com" and "ForTrueReligionJeans.com," that would mislead users to bogus E-commerce sites selling counterfeit True Religion apparel. 

The Web sites have since been shut down and each ordered to pay 8.15 million dollars each for four counts of willful trademark infringement and one count of copyright infringement.

The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), or Section 43d of the Lanham Act, is the governing body of laws regarding cybersquatting, which is the act of registering, trafficking, or using a domain name with the bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The term derives from squatting, the practice of inhabiting someone else's property without their permission. 

While it is unlikely that True Religion will be successful in actually collecting all the damages, Deborah Greaves, the company's general counsel, believes the judgment was successful in shutting down the Web sites and preventing cybersquatters from further fooling U.S. consumers. The false domain names have all been transferred to True Religion, which can now maintain a true presence online.