As a local story, this is a reach. But I went to school in Minnesota, so I was interested to read in the Star Tribune that a Colorado jury last week found the large Minnesota co-op Land O’Lakes had infringed a Fort Collins-based animal feed maker’s PROFILE trademark. In doing so, the jury awarded plaintiff Cache La Poudre Feeds $500,000 in actual damages and $14.6 million in profits it found Land O’Lakes had received under the mark. (The jury’s verdict form is here.)
The media rightly characterized the case as one of “David and Goliath.” Cache is family-owned and operated, with four to eight employees. By contrast, Land O’Lakes is owned by 7,000 dairy farmers and 1,200 community cooperatives. Last year, it had 8,500 employees and revenues of $7.27 billion.
The Denver Post reported that Cache had used PROFILE regionally since 1992 in connection with several goods, including a “show feed used by ranchers trying to produce grand-champion steers, lambs and pigs.” Cache claimed in 2002, a Land O’Lakes subsidiary launched a nationwide marketing campaign “consolidating and re-branding” 400 of its animal feed products under an identical mark.
The jury sided with Cache, finding that Land O’Lakes had acted “willingly and with bad faith” in infringing Cache’s mark.
Land O’Lakes has attempted to minimize the award as being “advisory,” stating the judge will have the final say.
On a related note, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal covered the story under the headline “Land O’Lakes fined $15.2M in copyright suit.” Besides being a trademark (not a copyright) dispute, and the fact the jury awarded damages (not a fine), the article actually wasn’t that bad.
The case cite is Cache La Poudre Feed, LLC v. Land O’Lakes, Inc., No. 04-00329 (D. Col.).