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Ninth Circuit:
Opinion Says California Company’s Assertion That Igloo Falsely Touted Its Biodegradable Cooler as ‘First to Market’ Despite Plaintiff’s Earlier Release Is Not Cognizable for Latham Act, Related State-Law Claims, Drawing Dissent
| Depicted above is Darrell Jobe holding a biodegradable cooler developed by the California company he founded, Vericool Inc., and related entities. Yesterday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Vericool’s false advertising claims against Igloo Products Corporation over statements boasting that a purportedly later-to-market eco-friendly ice chest was the first of its kind fail as a matter of law. |
A divided Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that Igloo Products Corporation was rightly granted summary judgment in a lawsuit filed by a California start-up, run by an ex-convict-turned-entrepreneur who sought to tap into the environmentally-friendly market, accusing the outdoor giant of false advertising in violation of federal and state law relating to statements promoting a biodegradable disposable ice chest as the “first” of its kind.
Saying that the plaintiff’s claims fail as a matter of law, Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson, writing for the court, declared that alleged misrepresentations about the nature of characteristic of goods must concern “an observable aspect” of a tangible product to be cognizable under a provision of the Lanham Act, found at 15 U.S.C. §1125(a)(1)(B), as well as for...
A newly unsealed whistleblower lawsuit accuses Novartis and Genentech of being at the center of a decades-long kickback scheme to promote their immunology med Xolair across dozens of states. Whist...