A U.S. court on Monday asked apparel designer Guess? Inc. (GES) to pay to Gucci America, Inc. in damages in a patent infringement lawsuit, but the amount was much less than the PPR (PPRUF.PK,PPRUY.PK) unit had sought.
The Italian luxury goods company had sought over $100 million in damages. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered damages of $2.5 million against Guess and its handbag and belt licensee and around $2 million against its footwear licensee.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said, ''Over the past three years, the parties have put in countless hours and spent untold sums of money, all in the service of fashion - what Oscar Wilde aptly called "a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
"With the instant disputes now resolved, and with Gucci's entitlement to the relief noted above, it is my hope that this ugliness will be limited to the runway and shopping floor, rather than spilling over into the courts," she added.
Gucci was complaining about designs that the U.S. firm has been using for decades.
The court said Gucci has no evidence and can only speculate about actual damages in the form of lost sales or harm to brand value. Accordingly, the only possible basis for recovery of actual damages is a reasonable royalty, it added.
Guess said Gucci also tried to attack it in other jurisdictions and that it would vigorously defend its rights in all these cases.
Guess shares closed on Monday at $24.47, down $0.04 or 0.16 percent, on a volume of 2.97 million shares, much above the 3-month average volume of 1.54 million shares. The stock gained 2.2 percent in extended trading.
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