When arts and crafts retailer Michaels used another company’s picture frame design, the company that made the original product decided to file a trademark infringement lawsuit and called the Bochetto team.

The plaintiff in this case, MCS Industries, alleged that the defendant, Michaels Stores Inc., copied their trademarked “Format” frames with Michaels’ Structure brand picture frames, even copying the instruction manual. MCS Industries claims that this infringement on their trademarked frames resulted in serious financial losses for the company, seeing sales reduced by 70 percent and losing over $1 million in revenue when Michaels, who originally bought the frames from MCS, introduced their own frames. MCS also says they lost their business with Michaels after that as well.

This case has not gone to discovery yet and the Michaels’ legal team was attempting to get the case thrown out before it went any further. However, the judge ruled that, given the allegations made, it was premature to throw away the case. All in all, the judge rejected Michael’s attempts to throw away the case and their argument that MCS didn’t show clear concrete losses resulting from the infringement.

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