Tobacco giant Philip Morris USA won a legal victory last week in its attempt to crack down on sales of its cigarettes that are manufactured overseas but sold over the Internet to U.S. customers, after a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss one such case it is pursuing.
Southern District of New York Judge George B. Daniels, in Philip Morris USA v. Veles Ltd., 06 CV 2988, held that the tobacco manufacturer’s trademark infringement allegations were “sufficient to raise an inference that defendants’ sales of foreign Philip Morris brand cigarettes into the United States could be misleading to consumers, and therefore state a claim for relief under the Lanham Act.”
