Bourbon firm wins suit against counterfeit seller

The company behind the WL Weller brand of bourbon has won a lawsuit against a distributor it accused of selling fake bottles of the liquor.

The complaint against Allocated Liquor LLC claimed that the defendant sold counterfeit Weller-branded bourbon, including in the form of miniature bottle gift sets that are not in the genuine product range, in contravention of US trademarks owned by Weller brand owner Sazerac Brands.

Allocated Liquor was served with a cease-and-desist letter by Sazerac and asked for the source of the counterfeits, which it indicated came from a seller on the e-commerce platform Etsy. The distributor said it had bought around 10 sets from the seller and had discarded three that were unsold after it received Sazerac’s letter.

It’s worth noting that Etsy does not allow the sale of any alcoholic products on its platform for licensing reasons.

The imitation bottles – listed on Allocated Liquor for around $300 apiece – had labelling that was almost identical to WL Weller’s packaging and caused “confusion, deception, or mistake” among consumers, and had even resulted in calls from customers seeking additional gift sets.

Sazerac had sought statutory damages of between $20,000 and $100,000 per counterfeit mark, for a total between $40,000 and $200,000, to compensate its lost profits, punish Allocated's “wilful” infringing conduct, and deter future infringing activity.

The California district court awarded the company was awarded $15,000 per counterfeit mark for a total of $30,000 in damages, as Allocated had responded to the letter by removing the infringing and counterfeit products from its website and discarding or destroying any remaining inventory, and was no longer selling any Sazerac products.

“Sazerac satisfies the procedural requirements for default judgment and establishes that entry of default judgment against Allocated is substantively appropriate,” said the court. “However, only some of Sazerac's requested relief is warranted.”