In Tiffany and Co. et al v. Costco Wholesale Corp, 13-01041 (SDNY), Tiffany has been granted treble damages and punitive damages of $19.4 million. Additionally, Costco has been permanently enjoined from using the term "Tiffany" without modifiers such as "setting", "set" or "style."
Th action stemmed from Tiffany's filing of a trademark action against Costco on February 14, 2013.
It alleged that Costco's customers were being led to believe that the Tiffany rings were being sold at Costco at low discount prices. Besides the display signs saying "Tiffany", the Costco salesperson also "described the rings as 'Tiffany rings'" in response to customer inquiries, and were not perturbed when customers who then realized that the rings were not actually manufactured by Tiffany expressed anger or upset." Further, Costco's "upper management employed a cavalier attitude towards the use of the Tiffany name in conjunction with the ring sales and marketing."
All these factors led Judge Swain to find in favor of Tiffany, granting it punitive damages as well due to Costco's intentionally deceptive marketing practices.
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Picture Source: The Diamond Authority
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