Drunk Driving Leads To IP Soap Opera

Intellectual property cases have a reputation of being devoid of personal drama.  Even when there are interesting tidbits, they usually surface later in a case and aren’t laid out in gory detail in a complaint.  Not so here.

 

The former and once again owner of Feliciano’s Ethnic Food Distributors (West Springfield, MA) has sued Latino Food Distributors (Springfield, MA) for copyright and trademark infringement, unjust enrichment, defamation, fraudulent inducement, and other claims stemming from purportedly unauthorized use of FEFD’s trademarks and copyrights in Feliciano’s Puerto Rico Sofrito and corresponding label as well as later selling a competing sofrito with an infringing label.

 

The original owner of FEFD (Feliciano) had to temporarily turn over his business to others to serve a prison sentence for OUI.  During his first work release he returned to FEFD and struck a deal with a customer to license the rights to his Sofrito in exchange for funds to pay down FEFD’s debt.  Feliciano then signed an employment agreement and license agreement with the customer’s company, defendant Latino Food Distributors.  Following a dispute over missing inventory (allegedly caused by LFD’s owner), Feliciano began drinking, which didn’t go over well with his parole board.

 

The complaint alleges that when Feliciano’s second work release came around, he went back to LFD only now was forced to choose between signing an employment agreement with significantly less favorable terms or returning to jail.  He signed the agreement, but after being presented with another one three weeks later, he refused to sign and his employer sent him back to jail.  Somehow, things got worse from there.

 

Once Feliciano was freed he learned that LFD had stopped selling his Sofrito and instead was selling its own, with similar labels, in violation of the license agreement and Feliciano’s trademarks and copyrights.  A letter from Feliciano’s attorney to LFD was answered with threats to sue the attorney.  Then one of LFD’s employees apparently defamed Feliciano to one of his customers.  Having had enough, Feliciano sued.

 

Anyone care to join me for a sofrito and beer party?

 

Feliciano v. Latino Food Distributors, Inc., 10-30164-MAP (D. Mass. August 2, 2010)

Comments

[jillian]

It's all true but you overlooked the new charges of Latino Food Dist. in Springfield District Court (offense code mgl c138 sel) for importing, warehousing, distributing alcohol w/o a license and identity theft.

[Ilan Barzilay]

Wow. I haven't been able to confirm this, but it does certainly add to the drama.