David-Versus-Goliath Trademark Victory Isn't Necessarily "Exceptional".

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated an award of attorneys' fees in a trademark infringement case, stating that the district court's finding of "exceptionality" under the Lanham Act was based on policy considerations rather than the totality of the circumstances. The case involved Lontex Corporation, a small Pennsylvania business, suing Nike for trademark infringement of its COOL COMPRESSION mark. The jury found Nike liable for willful and contributory infringement and awarded Lontex damages. The Third Circuit disagreed with Nike's arguments and upheld the jury's findings. However, it rejected the district court's finding of "exceptionality" and remanded the case for further analysis. In another case, major record labels Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group have sued AI music companies Suno and Udio for alleged copyright infringement. The labels claim that the AI companies used copyrighted music in their training data to generate songs that imitate genuine human sound recordings. The lawsuit seeks to hold the AI companies accountable for their use of copyrighted material without permission or compensation to the original artists and rightsholders. [Extracted from the article]