L'Oreal's Willfulness Causes Court to Double Olaplex's $24.96 Million Award

In a case relating to systems to protect hair during bleaching treatments, Olaplex sued L’Oreal for patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and breach of contract. As previously reported on this blog, after a jury trial, Olaplex won multiple awards that each exceeded $20 million, as well as a permanent injunction.

The court subsequently considered whether the Jury’s awards would give Olaplex a double recovery and whether to enhance damages due to willfulness. The court doubled the Jury’s $24,960,000 award for patent infringement and awarded attorneys’ fees and costs. The court reduced the trade secret and breach of contract award to nearly $9.5 million and then tripled the award due to willfulness. The court, however, found that the award for patent infringement “wholly includes” the judgement for trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract.

The case is LIQWD, Inc. and Olaplex LLC v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., et al. CA. No. 17-14-JFB-SRF (D. Del.)

Editors: Paul Stewart, Yanna S. Bouris and Mark Kachner