Canadian Smoke Shop Owner Demonstrates How To Turn Trademark Infringement Into Jail Time

from the LIFEHACK dept

Lots of brands seem to feel trademark infringement should be greeted with the full brunt force of the law -- even though it's rarely anything more than a civil offense. Counterfeited goods are their own issue, with Good Guy ICE on hand to run interference for major studios, the NFL and anyone else with a significant amount of lobbying power. Counterfeiters can end up in jail, but entities that do nothing more than use a trademarked name/logo without permission or in a "confusing" fashion? Not so much.

There are exceptions, of course. And caveats. But that's exactly what happened in Canada. Jail time for trademark infringement. Richard Stobbe of IPblog.ca has more details.

Imprisonment in intellectual property infringement cases is rare - although not unheard of. The message from a recent Canadian Federal Court decision is… don’t mess with the Court. They expect compliance with their orders and a contempt order can lead to a “warrant of committal”, resulting in imprisonment.

So, it wasn't exactly jail time for trademark infringement. And it happened in Canada. But the circumstances leading to the perpetrator's jailing contained plenty of infringement. Losing the lawsuit apparently had no deterrent effect on the defendant's activities, which went on completely uninterrupted after the judgment was handed down.

In 2013, a Federal Court ruled that Hightimes Smokeshop and its officer and director, Ameen Muhammad had infringed the “HIGH TIMES” trademark owned by Trans-High Corporation (See: Trans-High Corporation v Hightimes Smokeshop and Gifts Inc., 2013 FC 1190 (CanLII)). In spite of this judgment, the judgement was ignored, and trademark infringement continued on the shop signage, sales receipts and printed materials of Hightimes Smokeshop.

Two years later, Muhammad pleaded guilty to several counts of contempt for violating the order. He was also fined $62,500. The contempt order issued by the court along with this new judgment was also ignored. This forced the court to assume its final (incensed and irate) form. Muhammad is headed to jail.

A warrant of committal shall be issued for Ameen Muhammad a.k.a. Ameen Mohammad, who shall be arrested and imprisoned for a period of not less than 14 days and remain imprisoned until the full amounts of all fines, costs, and other amounts owing under the Contempt Order and the judgment of Justice Manson dated November 26, 2013 have been paid.

So, someone can go to jail for trademark infringement, but only if they're willing to get sued, lose the lawsuit, pretend the lawsuit never happened and ignore successively more severe orders from the court. It may also help to be Canadian, but one can imagine the same result could be achieved in the US with the right amount of sticktoitiveness.

Filed Under: ameen muhammad, canada, high times, jail, trademark