No more buts about it. The faceoff between North Face and South Butt
is over—again.
The North Face Apparel Corp. had
sued The South Butt, LLC, and several individuals for trademark infringement
for offering products with the names South Butt and Butt Face. See our earlier article on the original case. The original case was settled via a consent
decree. The lawsuit was revived this
year when North Face filed a motion to find South Butt and the other defendants
in contempt of the consent injunction.
Now the parties have filed a new
consent judgment of contempt in which the defendants agreed to a finding that
they violated the court’s original consent injunction.
The consent judgment for contempt
requires the defendants to immediately cease any further communication
concerning North Face, South Butt, and Butt Face, to turn over to North Face
any domain name or Twitter account that violates the original injunction, and
to destroy all goods with the Butt Face marks.
In addition, the defendants are
required to disgorge $65,000 in payments made to them by North Face, but will
not have to make any payments to North Face.
Instead, the repayment amount will be reduced by $1,000 per month for
every month that the defendants comply with the contempt judgment and by the
amount that defendants donate to charity.
The North Face Apparel Corp. v. Williams Pharmacy, Inc., The South
Butt, LLC, et al., E.D. Missouri No. 9-CV-02029, filed October 16, 2012.