Seattle Trademark Lawyer

In March, Western District Judge Richard Jones entered a permanent injunction against defendant “roof broker” James Garcia in the false advertising case of CertainTeed Corp. v. Seattle Roof Brokers. (Past STL posts here and here).

The order permanently enjoins Mr. Garcia and his unincorporated entities from stating in any advertising promoting his roofing business that “CertainTeed products ‘have a history of premature failure’” and “that CertainTeed products will fail or will not pass a resale inspection after 15-20 years, or any other statements in which Mr. Garcia represents that the majority of CertainTeed roofs will fail or will not pass an inspection after a particular term of years.”

On July 8, the court awarded CertainTeed its attorney’s fees in the amount of $114,681.50. Since it found Mr. Garcia had violated the Consumer Protection Act, the court did not need to determine that the case was “exceptional” for purposes of awarding fees under the Lanham Act.

The court found: “…. CertainTeed has not attempted to claim fees for much of the time its attorneys expended in this litigation. This is in part because CertainTeed acknowledges that it did not prevail on every claim or every request for relief from the court. In part, however, CertainTeed declined to claim certain fees simply to ensure that its overall fee request was reasonable. The court finds that CertainTeed could have reasonably claimed an award higher than the one it requested.”

The case cite is CertainTeed Corp. v. Seattle Roof Brokers, No. 09-0563 (W.D. Wash. July 8, 2011) (Jones, J).