Business Trends Analysts, Inc. v. The Freedonia Group, Inc. And the Freedonia Group, Incorporated

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that enhanced goodwill and market recognition could be treated as profit under Section 504(b) of the Copyright Act
• holding that “some gain in market recognition” is insufficient to establish a causal connection because “that gain cannot be attributed to the [infringing material] alone”
• finding that the plaintiff “no more priced the [creation of the copyrighted product] and then decided to copy than a purse-snatcher decides to forgo friendly negotiations”
• defining profits under the Copyright Act to mean “‘profits’” in the lay sense of gross revenue less out-of-pocket costs”
• burden is on infringing party to prove the portion of total profits attributable to non-infringing elements
• although the proof in the instant case is inadequate to support an award of damages including enhanced good will or market recognition, no legal barrier to such an award exists under Section 504(b) so long as the award is factually supported

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).