Fat lady sings: Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law in Designer Skin v S & L Vitamins

The District of Arizona ruled today in a case we defended through trial and have reported on here extensively.  The decision is here; the minute entry on the electronic docket reads as follows:

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW – that S & L Vitamins has infringed Designer Skin’s copyrights in the electronic renderings of the 42 products styled [by various brand names] and that Designer Skin is entitled to a permanent injunction enjoining S & L Vitamins from any such future infringement of these copyrights;

FURTHER ORDERED that S & L Vitamins has not infringed Designer Skin’s copyrights in the electronic renderings of the 12 products styled [by various brand names];

FURTHER ORDERED that each party shall bear its own costs in this matter.

Signed by Judge James A Teilborg

No attorneys’ fees for either side.  The injunction reads as follows (per the minute entry); prefatory language is omitted and emphasis is added:

FINAL JUDGMENT AND PERMANENT INJUNCTION in favor of Designer Skin, LLC against S&L Vitamins, Inc. . . . S & L Vitamins . . . are hereby immediately and permanently ENJOINED from publicly displaying, using, copying, or otherwise infringing Designer Skin’s copyrights in these electronic renderings for any purpose whatsoever. Nothing herein, however, shall be construed to enjoin S & L Vitamins from taking, using, or displaying original photographs of the physical Products themselves in connection with S & L Vitamins’ sale of the Products on the internet.

Signed by Judge James A Teilborg

Interested persons may wish to ponder how, and to what extent, the Court addressed the issues framed by the counsel for the respective parties, including identification of what indeed are “Designer Skin’s copyrights in [its] electronic renderings,” by considering the proposed findings and facts and conclusions of law submitted by the plaintiffs, and by the defendants, respectively.

For practitioners interested in the law of injunctions, the most interesting part of the decision concerns the court’s application of the rule in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (2006) that there is no automatic entitlement to an injunction upon a finding of infringement to a copyright infringement case.  We have made a separate post addressing that part of the decision.

S&L’s website is here, by the way.  Buy Designer Skin lotion from S&L!  It’s the way both sides pay their lawyers!

Originally posted 2014-05-23 12:53:57. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Ron Coleman