9th Circuit Panel Rules Coffee Company Infringed Bob Marley Trademark

January 10, 2019Media Mention
Courthouse News Service

A Nevada coffee company must pay the children of late reggae giant Bob Marley nearly $2.5 million in damages for trademark infringement, a Ninth Circuit panel has ruled.

In an unsigned memorandum, the court’s three-judge panel unanimously affirmed a series of 2017 rulings in favor of 56 Hope Road Companies – the business entity Marley’s children formed to acquire and exploit the singer’s assets, rights and commercial interests – that Jammin Java Corporation violated a licensing agreement to sell coffee under the Marley trademark.

In an email Thursday, Hope Road attorney Bonnie Eskenazi said “the Marley family [was] pleased with the result.” Eskenazi practices with Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger in Los Angeles.