St. Luke's Cataract & Laser Institute. P.A. v. Sanderson

573 F.3d 1186, 91 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1302, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 15268, 2009 WL 1955609
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 9, 2009
Docket08-11848
StatusPublished
Cited by68 cases

This text of 573 F.3d 1186 (St. Luke's Cataract & Laser Institute. P.A. v. Sanderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Luke's Cataract & Laser Institute. P.A. v. Sanderson, 573 F.3d 1186, 91 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1302, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 15268, 2009 WL 1955609 (11th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

HULL, Circuit Judge:

This appeal arises out of an intellectual property dispute between Plaintiff St. Luke’s Cataract and Laser Institute, P.C. (“St. Luke’s”) and Defendants Dr. James *1190 C. Sanderson and James C. Sanderson, M.D., LLC (“Dr. Sanderson”) regarding the ownership and use of two Internet domain names (laserspecialist.com and lasereyelid.com) and an Internet website (“the LaserSpecialist.com website”). 1 The domain names and website were used to advertise and promote St. Luke’s cosmetic surgery services while Dr. Sanderson worked for St. Luke’s.

St. Luke’s complaint alleged that, after he resigned from St. Luke’s, Dr. Sander-son improperly used the domain names and website to advertise and promote his solo practice, James C. Sanderson, M.D., LLC. 2 After a three-week trial, the jury found in favor of Dr. Sanderson on St. Luke’s copyright infringement claim, but found in favor of St. Luke’s on its six other claims, which included service mark infringement, cyberpiracy, and unfair competition. The jury awarded St. Luke’s a total of $150,000 in profits and actual, statutory, and punitive damages, but the district court later reduced the jury’s award to $98,000 after concluding some damages were duplicative. The district court also awarded St. Luke’s $550,134.00 in attorney’s fees and $37,307.49 in costs. 3

On appeal, St. Luke’s argues that the district court erred by: (1) denying its motion for a new trial on its copyright infringement claim; (2) limiting the scope of its copyright to the 2003 version of the LaserSpecialist.com website; (3) finding that the damages awarded on its cyberpiracy and service mark infringement claims were duplicative; and (4) failing to exclude the testimony of Dr. Sanderson’s expert witness Patricia Perzel. Dr. Sanderson cross-appeals and challenges: (1) the district court’s denial of his motion for judgment as a matter of law on St. Luke’s service mark infringement and unfair competition claims; (2) the sufficiency of the evidence to support the award of profits, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees to St. Luke’s; and (3) the number of attorney hours in the district court’s attorney’s fees award. After review and oral argument, we vacate and remand as to the district court’s determination of duplicative damages, but affirm as to all other issues raised in St. Luke’s appeal and Dr. Sanderson’s cross-appeal.

I. TRIAL EVIDENCE

We begin by reciting the trial evidence. Because one of St. Luke’s copyright registrations at issue came after its complaint was filed, we outline the facts in chronological order, placing the complaint in the context of the factual events.

A. Website Launch during Dr. Sander-son’s Employment with St. Luke’s

St. Luke’s is a privately owned eye care and ambulatory surgery center. In August 1993, Dr. Sanderson joined St. Luke’s as a general ophthalmologist to perform eye care and cataract surgery. In 1994, Dr. Sanderson left St. Luke’s to complete a fellowship in oculoplastic surgery of the face and eyes.

In January 1995, Dr. Sanderson rejoined St. Luke’s as a full-time employee and *1191 started an oculoplastic surgery practice, which was called the St. Luke’s Cosmetic Laser Center. 4 At the time, St. Luke’s did not have any other doctors who performed cosmetic surgery. St. Luke’s paid for the equipment and staff that Dr. Sanderson needed to establish an oculoplastic surgery practice and advertised Dr. Sanderson as its resident specialist in oculoplastic surgery. 5 However, St. Luke’s informed Dr. Sanderson that he would need to participate in advertising and promoting the practice as well.

In 1998, Dr. Sanderson worked with St. Luke’s webmaster Mark Erickson to create an Internet website to promote Dr. Sanderson’s oculoplastic surgery practice at St. Luke’s. Erickson registered the domain names laserspecialist.com and lasereyelid.com to use for the website. Dr. Sanderson was listed as the registrant with a St. Luke’s physical address. St. Luke’s paid the domain name registration and Internet hosting fees while Dr. Sanderson worked at St. Luke’s. Erickson regularly provided Dr. Sanderson with backup disks containing the content of the LaserSpecialist.com website.

St. Luke’s LaserSpecialist.com website contained information about St. Luke’s, Dr. Sanderson’s education and training, the surgical procedures that Dr. Sander-son performed, before and after photographs of patients, surgical videos, and other information for prospective patients. St. Luke’s employees took and edited some of these photographs and videos. Dr. Sanderson wrote the text for the website. Erickson wrote the computer code for the website. Dr. Sanderson and Erickson collaborated on the graphics and layout of the LaserSpecialist.com website. Erickson placed a copyright notice on each page of St. Luke’s LaserSpecialist.com website that stated “Copyright © [Year] St. Luke’s Cosmetic Laser Center, All Rights Reserved.”

In approximately 2000, Erickson and Dr. Sanderson added to the website a stylized version of the “LaserSpecialist.com” name in a blue and gold color scheme with a “swoosh” design to the right of the name, as shown below.

[[Image here]]

This logo appeared on the upper left corner of each page of the LaserSpecialist.com website. The logo served as a common navigational tool that linked the user to St. Luke’s home page when clicked.

*1192 The website originally was located at the lasereyelid.com domain name but later was moved to the laserspecialist.com domain name in 1998. 6 The lasereyelid.com domain name then was “parked” to the laserspecialist.com domain name so that any user visiting the lasereyelid.com domain name would be automatically redirected to St. Luke’s LaserSpecialist.com website. St. Luke’s LaserSpecialist.com website was linked to St. Luke’s primary website. Other registered domain names used to promote St. Luke’s specific practices were similarly linked to St. Luke’s primary website.

Dr. Sanderson worked at St. Luke’s for over eight years from 1995 to 2003. St. Luke’s LaserSpecialist.com website and logo, as well as its two domain names, were part of St. Luke’s oculoplastic surgery service for over five years from 1998 to 2003.

B. Dr. Sanderson Leaves St Luke’s, Opens Solo Practice, and .Relaunches the LaserSpecialist.com Website

In 2003, St. Luke’s employees began to hear rumors that Dr. Sanderson was planning to leave St. Luke’s to open his own oculoplastic surgery practice. St. Luke’s was concerned because it was planning a major renovation and expansion of its facilities used by Dr. Sanderson. In May 2003, Dr. James Gills, St. Luke’s founder, and Bradley Houser, St. Luke’s administrator, met with Dr. Sanderson to discuss the renovation plans. They asked Dr. Sander-son about the rumors that he was planning to leave. Dr.

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573 F.3d 1186, 91 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1302, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 15268, 2009 WL 1955609, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-lukes-cataract-laser-institute-pa-v-sanderson-ca11-2009.