Sanford

• Client: Sanford
• Date: 2005
• Location: International Trade Commission

Summary:

When overseas competitors flooded the market with gray-barreled markers in competition with our client Sanford's SHARPIE marker, we filed a complaint in the International Trade Commission ("ITC") against fifteen of our client's foreign competitors, alleging that their markers were injuring a domestic industry of the United States by infringing Sanford's common law trade dress rights.

In 2005, Schiff Hardin attorneys obtained summary judgment, in the form of a 72-page decision in Sanford's favor, ruling that Sanford was entitled to protection for its unregistered trade dress, that all of the respondents' products infringed that trade dress, and that a domestic injury existed.

The ITC issued its most powerful remedy: a general exclusion order barring from the United States borders not just the similar-looking markers of the competitors named in the ITC proceeding, but all fine point permanent markers, now and in the future, that use a confusing trade dress.

SHARPIE Marker Litigation (International Trade Commission 2005)