Justia International Trade Opinion Summaries

Alpha sued defendants, foreign corporations, alleging that defendants conspired to steal its tire blueprints, produce infringing tires, and sell them to entities that had formerly purchased products from Alpha. A jury found in favor of Alpha on all claims and the district court upheld the damages award against defendants' post-trial challenges. Defendants subsequently appealed, contesting the verdict and the district court's exercise of personal jurisdiction. The court initially held that the district court properly exercised jurisdiction over defendants. The court affirmed the district court's judgment that defendants were liable to Alpha under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., and for conversion under Virginia law, but the court dismissed the remaining theories of liability submitted to the jury. Accordingly, the court affirmed the jury's damages award. Finally, the court vacated the district court's award of attorneys' fees. View "Tire Engineering and Distribution, LLC. v. Shandong Linglong Rubber Co." on Justia Law

This case involved the importation and sale of counterfeit luxury goods bearing trademarks owned by Louis Vuitton (plaintiff) and others. Defendants appealed from the district court's judgment granting summary judgment to plaintiff on its claims of trademark counterfeiting and infringement, and awarding plaintiff statutory damages in the amount of $3 million, and more than $500,000 in attorney's fees and costs. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to stay the proceedings; that, as the district court concluded, an award of attorney's fees under 15 U.S.C. 1117(a) could accompany an award of statutory damages pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1117(c); and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding such fees or in setting their amount. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A. v. LY USA, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Appellant appealed an order of summary judgment in favor of the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection ("CBP") in his eight Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. 552, requests for 19 C.F.R. 133.21(c) Notices of Seizures of Infringing Merchandise ("Notices") from certain United States ports. Appellant raised several issues of error on appeal. The court held that the district court's findings that the Notices contained plainly commercial information, which disclosed intimate aspects of an importers business such as supply chains and fluctuations of demand for merchandise, was well supported. The court also held that the district court was not clearly erroneous in its finding that the information at issue was confidential and privileged where the trade secret exemption of FOIA ("Exemption 4") was applicable. The court further held that when an agency freely disclosed to a third party confidential information covered by a FOIA exemption without limiting the third-party's ability to further disseminate the information then the agency waived the ability to claim an exemption to a FOIA request for the disclosed information. Therefore, the district court's ruling was affirmed in regards to FOIA Exemption 4 but the district court's conclusion as to the fees charged to appellant was reversed where CBP must follow the FOIA fee provisions under 19 C.F.R. 103.