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Harley-Davidson has secured an injunction against counterfeiters that failed to respond to the motorcycle manufacturer’s trademark infringement lawsuit, filed earlier this year.
On Thursday, August 9, Judge Charles Kocoras, of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, granted Harley-Davidson an injunction against defaulting defendants and awarded the company $1 million in statutory damages from each defendant.
Harley-Davidson had filed a claim back in April this year, alleging that Chinese counterfeiters were selling fake goods to US consumers. It named nearly 170 defendants and online shops.
The fake goods featured Harley-Davidson’s trademarks, which include the ‘Harley-Davidson’ name (US number 0,507,163), first registered in 1949, and the skull logo (4,771,442), which is used for “a full line of jewellery in class 14”.
“The goodwill associated with the Harley-Davidson brand and the Harley-Davidson trademarks is of incalculable and inestimable value to Harley-Davidson,” said the original claim.
In 2015, branding specialist Interbrand estimated the value of the Harley-Davidson brand at $5.46 billion and has ranked the motorcycle manufacturer annually among the top 100 most valuable companies for the past decade.
Genuine Harley-Davidson products are only sold through authorised retail channels, with Harley-Davidson claiming that the company and its licensees have sold “many billions of dollars” of products and services under the trademarks and have “expended millions of dollars advertising and promoting those marks through virtually every media”.
Harley-Davidson regularly takes action to protect its brand—in November last year, sister site WIPR reported that the company had sued a group of Chinese counterfeiters allegedly running internet stores to sell fake goods to US residents.
In April 2018, Harley-Davidson secured $19.2 million in statutory damages in a trademark clash with t-shirt designer SunFrog, in what is Harley-Davidson’s largest-ever trademark infringement win.
WIPR spoke to Linda Heban, chief trademark counsel at Harley-Davidson, earlier this year about everything from tense negotiations to branded toilet seats. To read the interview, click here.
Harley-Davidson, counterfeits, trademark infringement, fakes, clothing, apparel, injunction, damages
