Biofert Manufacturing Inc. v. Agrisol Manufacturing Inc., 2020 FC 379
Justice McVeigh - 2020-03-13
Read full decision. Automatically generated summary:
The Plaintiff BioFert Manufacturing Inc. brought this action for trademark and copyright infringement against two corporations and four individuals involved in the corporations. The dispute arose after a predecessor company called BioFert Manufacturing went bankrupt in 2015 and the trustee sold its assets to the Plaintiff. One of the directing minds of old BioFert, Dr. Tahir Mahmood was part of a group that placed a bid for the assets of the bankrupt company. When his group was unsuccessful, he along with others incorporated two new fertilizer companies: Agrisol Manufacturing Inc. (Agrisol) and BioFert NA Manufacturing Inc. (BNA). It is alleged that Agrisol and BNA and the four individual Defendants passed off their business for the Plaintiff’s business and infringed trademarks and copyrighted works owned by the Plaintiff. ... The Defendants’ activities constituted trademark infringement, passing off, and making misleading descriptions of their goods. I also find that the Defendants infringed the Plaintiff’s registered trademark in a manner that was likely to depreciate the value of goodwill, as customers would have associated the registered 894 mark with the businesses of both the Plaintiff and the Defendants. ... The total compensatory damages awarded to the Plaintiff jointly and severally against the corporate Defendants and Dr. Tahir are $81,000. ... As a result I will award $500 per infringement for each of the two copyrighted works for a total of $1,000. ... The facts of this case do not meet the high threshold for punitive damages which are reserved for exceptional cases. [see costs award in 2020 FC 501]
Decision relates to:
- T-377-16 - BIOFERT MANUFACTURING INC. v. AGRISOL MANUFACTURING INC. and Others