Dress Designer Sherri Hill Wins $5M Judgment Against Online Counterfeiters

June 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Sherri Hill, the distinguished and successful designer of high quality prom dresses and evening gowns, announced that she has won a $5,000,000 default judgment and permanent injunction against two Defendants in an online counterfeiting, cybersquatting and copyright infringement case.

In the Complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan in April 2012, Sherri Hill had accused an unknown Defendant identified as “Wang Qinghe” and a related company, of selling hundreds of counterfeit Sherri Hill dresses through eleven websites with domain names such as SherriHillPromDresses.com, BuySherriHillPromDresses.com, and DesignerPromDresses2012.com.  The dresses had been shipped to investigators in New York, according to Court papers.

Documents filed with the Court identified a range of common contact information connecting the Defendant to the various websites and domain names, including IP addresses, e-mail addresses and domain name ownership records, which had been collected by RogueFinder Investigative Software.

The federal lawsuit, which was filed by the New York-based brand protection law firm Gioconda Law Group PLLC, sought the maximum statutory damages and a permanent injunction against further sales of the infringing dresses, which the Court found willfully violated two federally registered trademarks and twelve federally registered copyrights.  All eleven domain names were transferred to Sherri Hill by the Court Order.

“Sherri Hill will continue to protect her valuable trademarks and copyrights aggressively, both online and in the brick-and-mortar context,” said Joseph C. Gioconda, attorney for Sherri Hill.

The case was captioned:  Sherri Hill, Inc., et al. v. John Doe 1 a/k/a Wang Qinghe, et al., 1:12-cv-03014-JMF, USDC, Southern District of New York.

http://www.GiocondaLaw.com