Jeff Kobulnick Named Among Los Angeles Daily Journal’s Top Intellectual Property Attorneys

Jeff Kobulnick was recently recognized by the Los Angeles Daily Journal as being among the top intellectual property attorneys in California for his successful protection of clients’ trademarks and copyrights. The full item in the special supplement can be found below.

Jeffrey A. Kobulnick

To protect clients’ trademarks and copyrights, Kobulnick is partly a detective.

“I have learned a lot about the counterfeiting of goods,” he said.

For client Borden Co. (Pte) Ltd., the distributor of Eagle Brand Medicated Oil — a topical analgesic popular in the Asian community — Kobulnick registered the Eagle Brand mark with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which issued an import alert.

That led sharp-eyed U.S. customs agents to spot and seize a shipment of empty packaging for the product as it arrived from China.

“The counterfeiters had created identical packaging, even copying holograms,” Kobulnick said.

“It was very sophisticated, down to the package inserts and the red ribbon and cellophane to place on the package as an anti-tampering device,” he added. “I give customs credit. What tipped them off was the alert and the way they could see that flat unfilled boxes were being shipped in from China in pieces. We never found any of the product oil.”

That forestalled counterfeit sales. “We nipped it in the bud,” he said. “The shipping documents led us to an importer in Nevada and to the Chinese source.”

It was Hing Yip International Trading Co., and Kobulnick filed for trademark infringement in the Central District. Borden Co (Pte) Ltd. v. Grandway Enterprises Inc., 14-CV02858 (C.D. Cal., filed April 15, 2014)

“The defendant never bothered to show up,” Kobulnick said. “These are not good people, and they don’t want to explain to a court who they are and what they did.”

He moved for default judgment, and U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt granted the motion last year, ordered the seized goods to be destroyed, and awarded $1.2 million in statutory damages plus about $32,000 in attorney fees.

“It’s not over,” Kobulnick said. “There was no appeal, but now we have to collect. A part of what I do requires a lot of digging. Of course, the judgment acts as a strong deterrent.”

— John Roemer