Epson Granted Default Judgement in Deceptive Advertising Lawsuit

Epson has announced that a default judgment was entered for its recent deceptive advertising lawsuit against Dr. J, an Amazon selling partner that offers a line of projectors. If you aren’t fluent in legalese, a default judgment is what happens when a plaintiff (Epson) sues a defendant (Dr. J), and the defendant doesn't respond by the given deadline. In such cases, the plaintiff can ask the court to enter a default judgment, and the judge is able to make a final decision in favor of the plaintiff. Here, the court’s ruling found that Dr. J was unfairly competing by using false, deceptive, or misleading statements of fact that misrepresent the nature, quality, and characteristics of its current projector products. As a result, Dr. J was ordered to pay a hefty $580,000 in damages, and was enjoined (prohibited) from selling projectors in retail stores or online, via sites like Amazon and Walmart.com.

Lawsuits are common in the AV and tech industries (see our article Audioholics Info Subpoenaed in LG Lawsuit?!), but they most often have to do with patent disputes. Epson has been especially litigious lately, going after companies not for patent infringement, but for making false claims about the performance of their projectors. Epson is a leading manufacturer of projectors, both for home theater and for the business and education market. When the manufacturers of competing products lie about their performance and specs, it hurts Epson’s business and is obviously bad for the projector-buying public as well. One of the main specs that consumers look at when making purchase decisions is White Brightness, measured in Lumens. Dr. J claimed a figure of 15,000 Lumens for its projectors, but when White Brightness was tested according to the ISO 21118 standard, the result was just 300 Lumens — merely 2% of the claimed figure. Epson says that these highly inaccurate statements “deceive consumers, misrepresent the quality of projection technology, and ultimately impact the integrity of the industry at large.”

Consumers count on companies to provide reliable and accurate product information and performance specs. As an ongoing issue, brands that are falsifying White Brightness claims are not only hurting the end-user experiences of consumers, but also the overall perception of projection viewing, damaging the industry as a whole. The highly inaccurate White Brightness claims by Dr. J is an example of gross negligence on the part of a brand and its commitment to truth in advertising.

— Mike Isgrig, Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing, Epson America

Epson says that the company has been concentrating efforts to protect the projector market and ensure the implementation of internationally-recognized and accepted brightness standards. If all projector brands adhere to these standards, consumers are able to make better-informed purchasing decisions. According to Epson, the default judgement of the lawsuit and removal of these products from the market benefit all consumers and the projector industry as a whole. Shoppers should be suspicious of misleading metrics such as “Lux,” “LED Lumens,” or “Lamp Brightness,” according to Epson. These metrics fail to follow standardized methodology, making it harder for consumers to compare apples to apples when shopping for projectors and comparing their on-paper performance. The ability to understand and compare specifications is all the more important when shopping on Amazon and other online marketplaces. (This is just one of many reasons why we recommend buying from retailers like Audio Advice and Dreamedia AV, which are staffed with knowledgeable salespeople.)

Last year, Epson won three other lawsuits against companies (Formovie, JmGo, and AWOL Vision) that were found to be engaging in deceptive advertising practices. Legitimate projector measurements are defined by internationally-recognized standards groups, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Committee for Display Metrology (ICDM). Color Brightness is defined in the Information Display Measurement Standards (IDMS), which is published by the ICDM. The ISO standard ISO 21118 defines projector White Brightness, and this has been adopted as the industry standard, as recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). That’s a lot of abbreviations and acronyms, but the point is that these standards groups exist for a reason and do important work to remove the ambiguity from the processes of measuring, advertising, and comparing projectors.