Sabinsa Corporation has been awarded damages for Creative Compound's ForsLean® trademark infringement by the US District Court of New Jersey. Creative Compounds was ordered to disgorge its profit of $139,388.40 from their sales of the infringing product and to pay those disgorged profits to Sabinsa.
On January 10, 2011, the US Supreme Court denied Creative Compounds' request to review the July 2010 decision of the Third Circuit Court in Sabinsa's favor. The Third Circuit ruled that Creative Compounds infringed Sabinsa's "Forslean" trademark because Creative Compounds created a likelihood of confusion between ForsLean and Creative Compounds' Forsthin, both of which refer to Coleus forskohlii extract.
James H. Hulme, Esquire of Arent Fox LLP in Washington, DC, who represented Sabinsa in this case, said "The district court's final order requiring Creative Compounds to disgorge all of its profit from its sale of 'Forsthin' should serve as a warning to those who are tempted to trade upon Sabinsa's good name and intellectual property. At the end of the day, infringers will have to pay for their infringement. The court's order demonstrates that ultimately there is no profit in being an infringer."
"This battle has taken a very long time to resolve, but we were confident that the courts would indeed confirm our ownership of this trademark and the similarity of the infringing company's mark," said Sabinsa founder Dr. Muhammed Majeed. "We will always stand firmly behind our intellectual property to protect our investment and that of our customers."
