Assessment of Damages Caused By Trademark Infringement

The complaint sought to recover damages caused by defendant’s alleged trademark infringements against plaintiff Louis Vuitton Malletier. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, which was rejected by the first instance judge. On appeal defendant argued that the complaint was directed against a small informal shopkeeper against whom no expert report of damages was possible.

The Court of Appeals stated that this case fits one of the situations where the law (section 330, paragraph 6, of the Argentine Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure) expressly relieves plaintiff from the burden of specifying the amount claimed, as this data must arise from the evidence to be produced later on in the process. Therefore the Court held that it was reasonable to sue for an indeterminate sum for trademark infringement, as the specific amount could only be established by an accounting expert when reporting on the books of the defendant,at a later stage..

This reasonable interpretation had already been made by Divison 1 in an earlier decision (case No. 160/2005 of April 24, 2007) and differs from other court precedents which have held that the specific amount be set forth in the complaint right from the beginning, when .In most cases the plaintiff will obviously lack the appropriate information to make a genuine assessment of damages.

For more information, please contact:

		Sergio M. Ellmann
		Florencia Tablado