Retained as damages experts on behalf of adidas in their recent litigation against Payless ShoeSource (now Collective Brands, Inc.), CONSOR Intellectual Asset Management educated the jury on an appropriate level of compensation for the use of Adidas’ intellectual property to secure a favorable outcome for the client. CONSOR utilized real-world licensing data to demonstrate the likely outcome of a hypothetical negotiation between Adidas and Payless. Using these straightforward techniques, the jury was able to determine the amount of royalties owed to adidas for the use of infringing two and four stripe shoe designs.
On May 6, 2008, a federal jury in Portland, Oregon ordered Payless to pay $304.6 million for infringing on Adidas’ three-stripe trademark and shoe styles. The nine-person jury in U.S. District Court unanimously awarded $30.6 million in actual damages, $137 million in punitive damages and $137 million in Payless profits, according to a transcript of the proceeding.
Trademark attorneys believe it to be the largest award ever in a trademark-infringement case, surpassing a $143 million judgment in 1999 over the use of Trovan on antibiotics, a case in which Weston Anson of CONSOR acted as the damages expert.