Supreme Court tackles Kentucky false advertising case

[alp227]

Source: McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Fanciful questions about chocolate sauce confronted a Lexington, Ky., attorney representing a hometown firm Tuesday as the Supreme Court weighed when companies can file false advertising lawsuits.

Making his inaugural appearance before the high court, 44-year-old attorney Steven B. Loy urged justices to constrain when companies can be sued under a federal law banning false or misleading advertising. In a legal fight now entering its second decade, Lexmark International Inc. is defending itself against another firm that sued after claiming Lexmark made false allegations.

The case’s outcome could shape the bottom line of companies nationwide. But as is their wont, Supreme Court justices also conjured some far-out hypothetical scenarios to plumb a fairly technical case and its potential consequences. Most elaborately, Justice Stephen Breyer served up an extended example involving an ice cream parlor that’s selling sundaes made with chocolate sauce disparaged by a competitor.

“We prepared for the hypotheticals,” Loy said after the hour-long oral argument, though “not that precise one.”

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/03/210413/supreme-court-tackles-kentucky.html

[cosmicone]

1. Lexmark and HP are the main culprits

in creating cartridge monopolies.

A Lexmark printer can end up costing 17 times as much over its useful life as compared to an Epson or Samsung because of the gouging on the cartridges.

I hope Lexmark loses.

[elleng]

2. 'Lexmark International v. Static Control Components, is not one of the term’s more dramatic

controversies. It involves “standing,” an important, but often dry legal concept governing when people can sue. . .

Everyone seems to agree that a direct competitor can sue under the Lanham Act. In this case, that would cover the remanufacturers that sell the cartridges that compete directly with Lexmark products. A trickier question in this case is whether a supplier of parts to the direct competitor can likewise sue.

“Wherever the court draws the line on standing, whoever is just on the other side of the line is always going to think that it’s too narrow,” Loy told the justices. “We think the Lanham Act does and should have a narrow standing requirement.”'