(May 22, 2023, 4:07 PM EDT) — A rival online jewelry retailer urged a New York federal magistrate judge to deny the rival’s request for more than $306,000 in attorney fees. The rival had filed a copyright suit against the online jewelry retailer, but it was unsuccessful.

ID Tech LLC, which carries on with work as Ice New York City, told U.S. Justice Judge Valerie Figueredo in a Friday reminder that giving Bayam Gems’ solicitation for $306,774 in lawyer expenses would be just a prize for unjust lead and would contradict the Copyright Act’s objectives of remuneration and determent.

“Granting [Bayam] their lawyers’ charges would compensate untrustworthy — at the end of the day not unlawful — direct,” Ice said. “[ Frost] will not be deterred from using the legal system to try to right wrongs against them.

Ice contended that after disclosure it endeavored to intentionally excuse its Lanham Act and custom-based regulation exchange dress cases against Bayam, however, that Bayam wouldn’t consent to excusal for the sole motivation behind expanding its case for lawyer charges.

“Because of [Bayam’s] refusal to agree to excusal of the exchange dress cases, [Bayam] exhausted superfluous time and cost on their rundown judgment movement moving to excuse claims [Frost] wished to deliberately suspend,” the notice said.

In March, Bayam’s request for summary judgment was granted by Judge Figueredo because Frost failed to demonstrate that it had registered a valid copyright covering various jewelry sizes.

Frost argued that Bayam copied the widths and weights of hundreds of individual pieces of jewelry for sale on the Frost website, despite the dispute over who the copyright holder is—ID Tech or its co-founder Nison Kaykov.

Frost stated, “Defendants’ motion for attorneys’ fees should be denied in its entirety for the simple reason that plaintiffs caught defendants copying plaintiffs’ work red-handed.”

Ice guaranteed it deliberately distributed the weight and width of gems on its site at a worth not exactly the genuine estimated weight. Consequently, it said it realizes Bayam replicated the estimations from its site after it distributed Ice’s marginally doctored estimations.

Judge Figueredo actually excused the suit, finding that Bayam had duplicated just unprotected material and that the two gems dealers’ sites were not considerably comparative under the conventional spectator test.

Despite the fact that the judge determined that the material was not covered by copyright laws, Frost argued that it should not be penalized with exorbitant attorney fees for using the court to bring good faith claims.

In addition, Frost argued that Bayam’s repeated attempts to stall litigation in order to extract attorney fees were not supported by its willingness to voluntarily dismiss claims following the discovery process.

“No lawyers’ charge application ought to be allowed where the movant participated in genuine replicating of material,” the update said. ” Doing so would remunerate respondents’ improper and exploitative direct, which never really advances the objectives of the Copyright Act.”

According to Frost’s legal counsel, Steven M. Lester of La Reddola Lester & Associates LLP, who spoke with Law360 on Monday, the suit contained significant arguments that deserved to be heard in court. Additionally, Lester stated that granting attorney fees in any way would “discourage copyright holders from testing the extent to which their material is protected under copyright law.”

Lester stated, “We had some unusual arguments that helped develop copyright law.” My clients changed the weights and measurements to prevent others from copying them, and this company then copied the exact measurements and presented some very unique issues that deserved a hearing.”

Monday, counsel for Bayam Jewelry declined to provide a statement.

Ice is addressed in-house by Saradja Paul and by Steven M. Lester of La Reddola Lester and Partners LLP.

Bayam Gems is addressed by Matthew A. Sklar and Imprint M. Mikhail of McCarter and English LLP.

The case is ID Tech LLC et al. v. Bayam Gathering Inc. et al., case number 1:19-cv-08439 in the Southern District of New York United States District Court

Source – Law360