Washington, D.C.-based law firm Gilbert LLP secured a $26 million award for a mining tire inventor after a seven-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The copyright infringement case was brought against large multi-national tire companies from China and Dubai on behalf of the firm’s client, Jordan Fishman and his companies.
The jury awarded Fishman $26 million after finding that the defendants illegally copied his designs for unique mining tires. The jury found that Fishman’s former head of sales gave Fishman’s blueprints to the defendants, including China-based Shandong Linglong Rubber Co. LLC and Dubai-based Al Dobowi Tyre Co. Ltd.
“The conspiracy began in 2005, when the chairman of the Dubai-based tire company had a clandestine meeting with Fishman’s employee at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va.,” the law firm says.
“The jury reached the appropriate verdict because the defendants stole Mr. Fishman’s life’s work and profited immensely from the theft,” says August Matteis Jr., a partner at Gilbert LLP.
