Multimillion Dollar Trademark Jury Award Upheld by the Ninth Circuit
Skydive Arizona sued defendants collectively doing business as SKYRIDE, alleging trademark claims of false advertising, trademark infringement and cybersquatting. The district court granted partial summary judgment in Skydive Arizona’s favor on the false advertising claim. The jury awarded damages to Skydive Arizona: $1 million for willful false advertising, $2.5 million for willful trademark infringement, $2,500,004 for lost profits and $600,000 statutory damages for six violating domain names. The district court doubled the false advertising and trademark infringement awards. SKYRIDE appealed the judgment against it to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Skydive Arizona appealed the district court’s grant of an injunction against SKYRIDE limited to Arizona, instead of a nationwide injunction.
Skydive Arizona is one of world’s most well known skydiving centers. It hosts 145,000 to 160,000 skydives within Arizona each year and provides planes and personnel for skydiving events in 30 other states. SKYRIDE is a third-party advertising and booking service for skydiving centers, but does not own skydiving facilities. Customers pay SKYRIDE for a certificate that can be redeemed at drop zones across the country. SKYRIDE owned and operated a number of website referencing locations in Arizona, such as PhoenixSkydiving and TucsonSkydiving, as well as domain names such as skydivearizona.net. Both Skydive Arizona and SKYRIDE promote their businesses extensively on the Internet.
