Effective advocacy in false-advertising claims requires more than merely knowing the federal and state laws that govern this area; it also requires an intimate understanding of the industries in which these claims arise. Hogan & Hartson has established a record of achievement in bringing Lanham Act cases on behalf of corporate clients and in effectively defending those clients when lawsuits target them. Equally as important, we bring to these cases the wide-ranging industry and practice knowledge of a global law firm.

Our goal in this area is to prevent problems before they arise. We strive to identify potential problems with advertising in advance, working closely with clients to clear advertisements featuring product comparisons or claiming product superiority before they are introduced into the marketplace. With lawyers experienced in food and drug, franchise, trade, entertainment, sports, publishing and media law, we are able to analyze product promotion and advertising in light of regulatory and other restrictions and challenge misleading competitor advertising before governmental bodies. Because false advertising claims frequently intersect with trademark or trade-dress infringement allegations, lawyers in our false advertising practice often team with attorneys from our premier intellectual property and media law practices to ensure the most effective representation for our clients.

Related Experience

• When claims that our client’s advertising for the motion picture "Fantasia," which included a performance of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," was false and misleading because our client used an edited version, we obtained summary judgment for the client, a global media and entertainment company, which was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
• When 3M brought Lanham Act and unfair-competition claims against our client, a leading manufacturer of surgical devices, arising from promotional activities concerning patient grounding pads used in electrosurgery, we achieved a favorable settlement for our client.
• When one of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains began substituting a competitor’s drug when filling prescriptions for a brand-name product, we halted that activity by filing a successful Lanham Act claim for our client, a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company.
• On behalf of the Capitolo di San Pietro, a chapter of priests appointed by the Pope to administer St. Peter's Basilica, including the world renowned collection of artworks in its Treasury, we persuaded the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to grant summary judgment in favor of the Capitolo on breach of contract, unjust enrichment, false commercial statement, and unfair competition claims against a marketing company and its sublicensees for unauthorized use of the Capitolo and Vatican name and seals, and other improper sales and marketing practices.
• When one of the largest U.S. beer manufacturers asserted trademark and trade dress infringement and advertising claims against our client, a world renowned Czech brewery famous for its premium imported lager, we challenged the assertion that our client’s marketing efforts were deceptive or confusing to the consuming public and negotiated a settlement of the matter.
• We helped a fertilizer and weed control product manufacturer settle a federal Lanham Act suit involving product superiority claims.
• Together with a dietary supplement manufacturer, we investigated product superiority claims made by a competitor and successfully fought the competitor’s demand that our client stop making references to the competitor’s product in its comparative advertising.
• We advised the nation’s largest manufacturer of PCs in a series of cases alleging that resellers were counterfeiting or passing off serialized and nonserialized computer hardware. We also serve as counsel to the Anti-Gray Market Alliance and have spoken at AGMA meetings about strategies for combating the gray market in computer equipment.
• We represented a major manufacturer of golf equipment in bringing Lanham Act and unfair-competition claims alleging that a competitor’s advertising for its golf balls was false and misleading, causing the competitor to give up the advertising.
• When our nonprofit client was sued by a for-profit tissue bank over an advertising campaign that questioned the safety and efficacy of donor pooling of donated tissues, we countersued on behalf of the client, challenging the accuracy of the for-profit’s advertisements, and helped them reach a settlement.
• For one of the nation’s largest insurers, we precleared its advertising, which compared its health insurance product to one offered to federal employees.
• We obtained a victory in a federal court case against the National Gallery of Art on behalf of academic art historians whose work was stolen by the gallery and who were then victimized in a press release describing an exhibition for which the copyrighted text was used. The government settled the case by offering a judgment and a letter of apology.