Lifestyle Lift Holding, Inc. v. Leonard [1]

In October 2007, Lifestyle Lift Holding, Inc. sued Justin Leonard and his company Leonard Fitness, Inc. for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and false advertising. Leonard runs the forum website infomercialscams.com [2], which gives consumers the opportunity to voice their criticisms and defenses of various products and services, including the "Lifestyle Lift" cosmetic surgery procedure. The complaint alleged that Leonard infringed and diluted the "Lifestyle Lift" trademark by using it in URLs for his website. It also claimed that he violated federal false advertising law by creating the false impression that the Lifestyle Lift procedure and its associated services were a "scam." See the Complaint at paragraph 18.

In December 2007, Leonard moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over him, that his noncommercial use of Lifestyle Lift's trademark for purposes of consumer commentary was protected by the First Amendment, that his use of the trademark was nominative fair use [3], and that Lifestyle Lift had failed to allege a proper trademark or false advertising claim. The court granted Leonard's motion to dismiss during a May 2, 2008 hearing. The record does not indicate whether the court gave Lifestyle Lift permission to amend its complaint.

Update:

According to Public Citizen (Leonard's counsel) Lifestyle chose to pay $17,500 in attorney's fees rather than face the possibility of Rule 11 sanctions.