Draper, Utah – Lashbrook has filed a lawsuit against Manly Bands, accusing the online retailer and former Lashbrook customer of stealing its designs.
Lashbrook, based in Draper, Utah, creates custom wedding bands using unique materials and inlays, such as titanium and Damascus steel, and sells them online and through its retail partners.
Manly Bands, also based in Utah, was founded in 2016 by a husband and wife team.
The lawsuit, filed on 1 December in the US District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah, contains 30 separate causes of action, including claims for copyright infringement, copyright management information violations, unfair competition, unlawful acts and civil conspiracy.
It names Manly Bands LLC, along with company co-founders and co-CEOs Johnathan Ruggiero and Michelle Luchese, and company president Marshall Smith as defendants.
In an emailed statement, Manly Bands called the allegations in the lawsuit “misguided and without merit”.
“While we have not yet been served with the lawsuit, we understand that Lashbrook is accusing us of doing things that either did not happen, are not illegal or, in many cases, we were expressly permitted to do by them,” the statement read.
“We are disappointed that a valued supplier and manufacturing partner of ours, who has received millions of dollars of business from us, has chosen to retaliate in this manner in response to a customer’s responsible business decision to adjust its manufacturing strategy, as we have done. However, if Lashbrook chooses to stand behind its false allegations, we look forward to demonstrating that the claims are misguided and without merit.
Lashbrook also claims that Manly Bands wrote software code to steal images from Lashbrook’s servers, remove the watermarks and display the rings on the Manly Bands website.
In the lawsuit, Lashbrook noted that its website URL can be found within the HTML code of images on the Manly Bands website, which it claims is evidence that the images were taken directly from its website.
Lashbrook alleged that Manly Bands showed these images, with the watermarks removed, to manufacturers to make copies of its designs.
Manly Bands has been a customer of Lashbrook since 2018, according to court documents, and has purchased “tens of thousands” of wedding bands from the company.
In 2021, the two were in negotiations to continue their partnership, but Lashbrook then learned that Manly Bands was allegedly having its most popular designs replicated by a manufacturer in China.
Lashbrook said it told Manly Bands that its designs were protected by copyright, but “Manly Bands denied that Lashbrook owned any copyright in any of its jewellery designs and claimed that jewellery was not entitled to copyright protection”.
In 2022, Manly Bands informed Lashbrook that it was “significantly” reducing the number of products it purchased from Lashbrook and began manufacturing wedding bands in its own facilities.
“Manly Bands even requested the computer design files for certain Lashbrook designs. But when this request was denied, Manly Bands proceeded to make nearly identical copies without authorisation, attribution or payment of royalties,” Lashbrook said in the suit.
The suit seeks damages, injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees and costs.
Our innovative ring designs are protected by copyright law, and this lawsuit seeks to protect our innovation and prevent unfair competition,” Lashbrook founder and CEO Eric Laker said in a press release about the lawsuit.
