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Default judgment granted for passing off involving false distributorship claim on grey market goods.
The plaintiffs brought a motion for default judgment against the defendant for passing off and trademark infringement.
The defendant had sold genuine products bearing the plaintiff's trademark but attached a label falsely identifying itself as the exclusive Canadian distributor.
The Federal Court found no trademark infringement as the goods were genuine (parallel imports).
However, the Court granted default judgment for passing off under subsection 7(b) of the Trademarks Act due to the false representation.
The Court awarded the trademark owner $55,000 in compensatory damages and $35,000 in punitive damages due to the defendant's deliberate conduct and failure to comply with a previous injunction order.
