What is the meaning of 'laches' as it relates to the affirmative defenses claimed by Clean Your Dirty Face?
Clean_Your_Dirty_Face Franchise · 2025 FDDAnswer from 2025 FDD Document
Make-Up Designory v. Shama Patel, MUD Franchising, LLC and Anjmanj, Inc. (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, Case No. 1:17-cv-02680, filed April 7, 2017). Make-Up Designory (the "Plaintiff"), an educational institution training student in makeup specialties, filed this lawsuit against the us, our Chief Executive Officer, and Anjmanj, Inc. (collectively the "Defendants") to enforce its intellectual property rights in certain trademarks. Specifically, plaintiff alleged that Defendants were copying and infringing aspects of Plaintiff's intellectual property, and, as a result, creating a likelihood of confusion, actual confusion, and deception as to the affiliation, connection, association, origin, sponsorship and approval of Defendant's services. Plaintiff asserted claims for federal trademark infringement, federal unfair competition, state deceptive trade practices, common law trademark infringement, and common law unfair competition. The relief sought included a judgment stating Defendants infringed Plaintiff's trademark, engaged in unfair competition, engaged in deceptive trade practices, an order transferring ownership of the domain name mudfacialbar.com, money damages, and attorney fees. On May 30, 2017, Defendants filed their answer to the complaint and affirmative defenses claiming failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; that the claims were based on the doctrines of mootness, estoppel and laches; and that the claims were barred by Plaintiff's failure to mitigate damages. On June 29, 2017, the parties filed a Joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice and Defendants filed an express abandonment of the "MUD" trademark application on July 5, 2017.
Source: Item 3 — LITIGATION (FDD page 10)
What This Means (2025 FDD)
According to the 2025 Clean Your Dirty Face Franchise Disclosure Document, the term 'laches' is mentioned in the context of a lawsuit, Make-Up Designory v. Shama Patel, MUD Franchising, LLC and Anjmanj, Inc., filed on April 7, 2017. In this case, Clean Your Dirty Face, along with its CEO and Anjmanj, Inc., were the defendants. The plaintiff, Make-Up Designory, alleged that the defendants infringed on their intellectual property rights, specifically trademarks, leading to confusion and deception regarding the affiliation and origin of the defendant's services.
Clean Your Dirty Face's defense included several affirmative defenses, one of which was 'laches.' In legal terms, laches is a doctrine asserting that the plaintiff has waited too long to bring a claim, and this delay has prejudiced the defendant. Essentially, Clean Your Dirty Face argued that Make-Up Designory's claims should be barred because they waited an unreasonable amount of time to file the lawsuit, and this delay negatively impacted Clean Your Dirty Face's ability to defend itself. Other affirmative defenses claimed by Clean Your Dirty Face were failure to state a claim, mootness, and estoppel, and that the claims were barred by the Plaintiff's failure to mitigate damages.
Ultimately, the parties filed a Joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice on June 29, 2017, and Clean Your Dirty Face abandoned the "MUD" trademark application on July 5, 2017. This indicates that the lawsuit was resolved, although the specific details of the resolution are not provided in this excerpt. For a prospective franchisee, this litigation history highlights the importance of intellectual property rights and the potential for disputes, as well as the possible legal defenses a company like Clean Your Dirty Face might employ.