SCOTUS: Willfulness Not Required for Trademark Infringement Plaintiff to Recover Defendant’s Profits

Author: Patrick Mulkern

On April 23, 2020, the Supreme Court resolved a long-standing circuit split regarding whether a trademark infringement plaintiff must show willfulness as a prerequisite to recovery of the defendant’s profits. In Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., Case No. 18-1233 (Apr. 23, 2020),¹ a near-unanimous Court² lowered the bar for half the country, announcing: no, a trademark holder need not show willfulness before it can recover the accused infringer’s profits.

Summary of Underlying Dispute

Petitioner Romag Fasteners, Inc. (“Romag”) sells magnetic snap fasteners for use with leather goods, while Respondent Fossil, Inc. (“Fossil”) sells fashion accessories. The parties entered an agreement under which Fossil would use Romag’s fasteners in Fossil’s handbags. Eventually, Romag learned that Fossil’s manufacturer was using counterfeit fasteners instead of authentic Romag products.

At trial, the jury agreed with Romag, finding that Fossil had infringed and acted “in callous disregard” of Romag’s rights—but ultimately rejected the contention that Fossil had acted “willfully” as that term had been defined by the judge. Therefore, pursuant to then-applicable Second Circuit precedent under which a trademark plaintiff must first prove the infringement was willful, Romag could not recover Fossil’s profits. A well-defined split among the circuit courts on this issue led to the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari.

Court’s Decision

The Court’s decision can be broken down into three sections: a statutory interpretation portion, a historical analysis portion, and a policy argument portion.

The statutory interpretation segment began with the language of the Lanham Act, noting the only limitation on recovery under Section 1117(a) (including “defendant’s profits”) was “subject to the principles of equity.” The Court explained why this limitation was significant, as the Lanham Act does explicitly require willfulness as a precondition for profits under Section 1125(c) (governing dilution)—but Romag had proceeded under Section 1125(a) (relating to false or misleading use of trademarks). The Court identified a slew of instances in which the Lanham Act clearly required specific mental states,³ and concluded that “this court [does not] usually read into statutes words that aren’t there. It’s a temptation we are doubly careful to avoid when Congress has (as here) included the term in question elsewhere in the very same statutory provision.”

The Court then reviewed Fossil’s argument that “principles of equity” provided a historical basis for requiring willfulness—an argument that the Court characterized as a “curious suggestion.” Citing first to Black’s Law Dictionary, then treatises from the 1800s, as well as several of the Supreme Court’s own decisions, the Court held “principles of equity” is a “trans-substantive” concept and does not relate or call to mind any trademark-specific requirements. Even if the Court were to assume the Lanham Act sought to incorporate common law principles, it was “far from clear whether trademark law historically required a showing of willfulness before allowing a profits remedy.” On this point, the Court acknowledged competing authority—with Fossil’s cases seeming requiring willfulness, and the fact that “Romag cites other cases that expressly rejected any such rule”—and then reiterated “the ordinary, trans-substantive principle that a defendant’s mental state is relevant to assigning an appropriate remedy.”

Finally, the Court’s decision concluded by identifying the parties’ competing policy arguments, then punted, stating, “the place for reconciling competing and incommensurable policy goals like these is before policymakers” (i.e., Congress).

Concurring Opinions

Justices Alito, Breyer, and Kagan wrote one of two concurrences, in which they simply reiterated the point that “willfulness is a highly important consideration in awarding profits under § 1117(a), but not an absolute precondition.” Justice Sotomayor wrote the other concurrence, in which she rejected the majority’s suggestion that profits would (or should) ever be awarded for innocent infringement, but agreed in the ultimately judgment. In so finding, she wrote to explicitly disagree with any interpretation of the Lanham Act in which profits could be awarded “for innocent or good-faith trademark infringement[.]”

Impact

This decision lowers the bar for nearly half the country, as the First, Second, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits had previously used willfulness as a threshold requirement in trademark infringement claims seeking defendants’ profits. Now, it is likely that defendant’s profits analysis will track that which has been used in the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, where willfulness was just one of several factors in a flexible analysis. See, e.g., Quick Techs., Inc. v. Sage Grp. PLC, 313 F.3d 338, 349 (5th Cir. 2002) (stating that “willful infringement” is “an important factor”).

Ultimately, the following passage from the Court’s opinion (together with the language found in both concurring opinions) will likely serve as support for those circuit courts that wish to make willfulness a key factor in their analysis going forward:

[I]t is a principle long reflected in equity practice where district courts have often considered a defendant’s mental state, among other factors, when exercising their discretion in choosing a fitting remedy. . . . Given these traditional principles, we do not doubt that a trademark defendant’s mental state is a highly important consideration in determining whether an award of profits is appropriate. But acknowledging that much is a far cry from insisting on the inflexible precondition to recovery Fossil advances.

About the author: Patrick J. Mulkern is an associate in Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. His practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and transactional matters, with a particular emphasis on patent, trademark, and trade secret litigation. Mr. Mulkern is a registered patent attorney and his biography can be found here.
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¹ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1233_5he6.pdf.
² Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the court, with which all but one justice joined. Justice Sotomayor concurred in the judgment only.
³ See, e.g., § 1117(b) (requiring treble damages and attorney’s fees when certain conduct is intentional); § 1117(c) (increasing cap on statutory damages for certain willful violations); § 1118 (permitting courts to destroy infringing items for any violation of section 1125(a) or any willful violation of section 1125(c)); § 1114 (providing certain innocent infringers subject only to injunction); § 1125(d)(1)(A)(i) (prohibiting certain conduct only if undertaken with “bad faith intent”).