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Trademark Law

DC church controls Proud Boys trademark as result of judge’s decision

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 4, 2025, 1:59 pm CST

A Washington, D.C., judge has transferred interest in a trademark owned by Proud Boys International, a far-right group, to a church that its members vandalized in December 2020.

The judge’s injunction also banned Proud Boys International from selling or licensing its trademark without court approval or the consent of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had sued over the attack.

Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier of the District of Columbia Superior Court entered the injunction Feb. 3 after the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., sued to enforce a $2.8 million default judgment against the Proud Boys.

The New York Times, the Independent, the Guardian and the Hill are among the publications with coverage.

Bosier’s ruling “effectively means that Proud Boys chapters across the country can no longer legally use their own name or the group’s traditional symbols without the permission of the church,” the New York Times reports. “The ruling also clears the way for the church to try to seize any money that the Proud Boys might make by selling merchandise, like hats or T-shirts emblazoned with their name or with any of their familiar logos, including a black and yellow laurel wreath.”

The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., had obtained the default judgment in a June 2023 decision by Judge Neal E. Kravitz of the District of Columbia Superior Court. He ruled after the church alleged that the Proud Boys trespassed on church property during a march and destroyed its large Black Lives Matter sign.

The church was represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs; and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

One of the defendants in the lawsuits was Enrique Tarrio, a former Proud Boys leader who had been sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes for helping to plan the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Tarrio was not at the Capitol during the attack, however, because he was banned from the city after he was arrested on vandalism charges, the New York Times explains.

Last month, Tarrio received a full pardon of his Capitol attack convictions from President Donald Trump.

Tarrio commented on the trademark injunction in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He accused the church of engaging “in a campaign of harassment and falsehoods.” The judge’s conduct, he said, “necessitates impeachment and investigation.”

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3. Pro se litigant and lawyer ordered to pay…

Law Firms

Pro se litigant and lawyer ordered to pay $1.5M for using Lewis Brisbois name

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 17, 2024, 3:05 pm CDT

Updated: A federal judge in Houston has ordered a lawyer and a pro se litigant in a rental-fee and eviction dispute to pay $1.5 million for registering a Texas business using the name of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, the law firm representing their litigation opponent in the rental litigation.

U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison of the Southern District of Texas ordered pro se litigant Michael Bitgood to pay $1 million and lawyer Susan C. Norman, who represented a second litigant in the rental dispute, to pay $500,000, Law360 reports. Another lawyer, Bradley B. Beers, was ordered to pay $10,000 for filing an assumed name certificate that registered the new entity with the Texas secretary of state’s office.

Bitgood and Norman filed documents to register a partnership and assume the Lewis Brisbois name after they saw an online notice reflecting that the firm’s registration for a foreign limited liability partnership in Texas had lapsed. After taking on the Lewis Brisbois name, Bitgood and Norman alleged that the Lewis Brisbois lawyer representing their opponent in the rental litigation no longer had the right to appear in a Texas court. The gambit worked.

Lewis Brisbois sued in September 2022 for alleged trademark infringement, unfair competition and fraud. Ellison issued a preliminary injunction in February 2023 that was upheld in an unpublished July 31 opinion by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans.

Ellison granted a motion for summary judgment Aug. 14, a permanent injunction Sept. 6 and assessed damages Sept. 13.

Ellison’s summary judgment opinion found for Lewis Brisbois on the trademark infringement and unfair competition claims. He also said Lewis Brisbois was entitled to attorney fees, which are allowed in Lanham Act trademark cases that are “exceptional.”

“If any Lanham Act case is exceptional, it is this one,” Ellison wrote. “Defendants have filed dozens of frivolous motions and delayed the proceedings for months.”

In a footnote, Ellison said the filing of frivolous motions was “most egregious” in Bitgood’s case because he had filed 65 motions and documents after being granted access to the PACER filing system.

“This court has had complex, multiyear class actions require far fewer filings than this straightforward infringement case,” Ellison wrote.

Norman and Beers did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s email and voicemail messages seeking comment.

Bitgood told the Journal in an email that, “No, I do not have $1 million laying around” to pay the judgment. He elaborated in a phone interview.

“Not only is it unfair, it’s outrageous,” Bitgood says of the damages order. Lewis Brisbois “didn’t suffer a penny’s worth of damages; they incurred no attorneys fees,” he says.

Bitgood says he sought to use the Lewis Brisbois name “for the heck of it,” but his quest turned out to be successful because he “whipped” Lewis Brisbois when he disqualified the firm in the rental dispute.

“I beat them fair and square in state court,” he says.

Bitgood says he told Ellison in an Oct. 6, 2022, hearing, which was less than a month into the trademark lawsuit, that he had no interest in fighting the trademark case and didn’t want to use the Lewis Brisbois name.

“Who wants a name like that with their reputation anyway?” Bitgood says.

Additional demands, however, for a reversal of the rental decision and indemnity led Bitgood, in his words, to tell Lewis Brisbois to, “Blow it out your a- -; there is no way I’m going to do all that.”

As for Ellison’s allegations that Bitgood filed frivolous motions, Bitgood says the judge should specify which motions he thought were frivolous and what law supported his conclusion. And he should have a hearing to refute the allegations, Bitgood says.

Because he indicated early on that he was willing to give up the name, Bitgood says, “What are we fighting about?”

Updated Sept. 17 at 3:37 p.m. to add comments from pro se litigant Michael Bitgood.

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3. Kim Kardashian sued for claiming ‘low-grade’…

Intellectual Property Law

Kim Kardashian sued for claiming ‘low-grade’ knockoff furniture was made by artist Donald Judd

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 28, 2024, 11:20 am CDT

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian claimed on video that she had purchased “Donald Judd tables” that were in fact “cheap knockoffs,” leading consumers to think that the source of the furniture was the nonprofit foundation dedicated to the artist’s legacy, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

The Judd Foundation sued Kardashian and Clements Design, which allegedly made the knockoff furniture that appeared in a 2022 Kardashian video made at the offices of Kardashian’s skin care company.

“If you guys are furniture people—because I’ve really gotten into furniture lately—these Donald Judd tables are really amazing and totally blend in with the seats,” Kardashian said in the video posted to YouTube.

Reuters, the New York Times, TMZ and USA Today have coverage of the March 27 lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The suit accuses Kardashian of false endorsement and Clements Design of trademark and copyright infringement, false advertising and unfair competition.

“These poor-quality imitations masquerading as authentic Donald Judd tables and chairs harm the Donald Judd brand, as consumers will see the cheap knockoffs, be told they are authentic Donald Judd furniture, and erroneously associate those low-grade pieces with the Donald Judd brand,” the suit says.

Judd died in 1994.

Clements Design said in a statement published by the New York Times and TMZ its furniture had “obvious key differences” from Donald Judd designs, and the Judd Foundation had been unwilling to settle on reasonable terms.

A lawyer for Clements Design, John Ulin, told the foundation that the wood type and proportions of its table were different than the Donald Judd tables, according to the New York Times.

“They are different tables with different designs,” Ulin said.