Advertising Litigation
Advertising claims: Have you gone too far? Or not far enough?
Whether you’re on the offensive or defensive side of an advertising claims dispute, Manatt will safeguard your interests and reputation.
Manatt’s advertising litigation lawyers have two responsibilities: protect your company’s ability to differentiate its products truthfully in a crowded marketplace; and keep your competitors in line so they don’t mislead consumers about their products – or yours. Manatt’s litigation team works in tandem with our advertising counseling lawyers to ensure your advertising claims can stand up to litigation before the campaign is even produced. We help you bolster your own claims, while exposing the weaknesses in those of your competitors. By knowing your operation inside and out, we help limit your vulnerability to countersuits.
Our attorneys employ a scientific approach to litigation. We’ll work to develop and strengthen the evidence that’s needed to prove your claims (or refute your competition’s) by securing support from leading, objective third-party researchers and scientists. We work with many of the nation’s leading consumer survey experts to evaluate a competitor’s ads, or your own, for false implied claims.
Unlike many firms that claim some experience in Lanham Act false advertising cases, Manatt eats and breathes the Lanham Act every day. We know the ins and outs of the law. We know the landscape: the experts, the opposing counsel and the courts. As a result, Manatt has brought and defended Lanham Act litigation all over the country on behalf of many of the nation’s most famous brands. Our team includes some of the most well-known Lanham Act litigators in the country.
Manatt in Action
- Procter & Gamble v. Kimberly-Clark. Manatt successfully defended Kimberly-Clark in a false advertising lawsuit brought by Procter & Gamble (P&G) regarding advertising for Huggies diapers. The advertising campaign claimed that Huggies fit more naturally than other leading diapers and portrayed competitive diapers as designed to fit “bricks” better than babies. The court denied P&G’s motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that the claim of “better fit” was most likely puffery, but even if not, plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail on the merits.
- AT&T v. Comcast. On behalf of AT&T, we stopped a campaign by rival Comcast, which sought to scare potential consumers of AT&T’s new U-verse product into believing that installation would require the placement of large utility boxes on homeowners’ front lawns. The matter settled, with Comcast withdrawing the ads after the court’s preliminary injunction proceedings.
- Dyson v. Maytag. Manatt defended Dyson against counterclaims for false advertising in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Maytag sought more than $700 million in money damages attributable to Hoover’s loss of market share from Dyson’s “no loss of suction” claims, which had formed the core of Dyson’s marketing efforts since the U.S. launch of the product in 2004. After more than a year of discovery and motions practice stretching across three continents, the case settled favorably in June 2007.
- Schick Mfg., Inc. v. Gillette Co., D. Conn. In a case widely cited as one of the leading Lanham Act cases, Manatt prevailed on behalf of Schick Manufacturing, Eveready Battery Company and Energizer in a false advertising lawsuit against The Gillette Company regarding claims for Gillette’s M3 Power razor. We used a highly focused strategy to obtain a preliminary injunction against the claims that the razor raised hairs up and away from the skin, in part by showing that the three-second animation used in the challenged commercials falsely depicted the hairs elongating by up to 50 percent during shaving. The preliminary injunction Manatt obtained required Gillette to cease the claims about raising hair up and away from the skin, and to sticker over products in the marketplace.