Opinion ID: 199225
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retroactive Application of ACPA

Text: 28 Defendants also ask that we review the district court's legal determination that the retroactive application of ACPA to the facts of this case is permissible. 13 After reviewing the district court opinion and the parties' briefs, however, we find it unnecessary to reach this issue, as even if we were to decide the matter in defendants' favor, it would not provide an adequate basis for dissolving the injunction. This is so because the district court expressly stated that its decision to impose a preliminary injunction rested principally upon its finding that Internet users would likely be confused by the concomitant existence of the northernlight.com and northernlights.com marks. See 97 F. Supp. 2d at 121 (Before turning to the balancing factors, I must emphasize the importance of the likelihood of confusion findings to the preliminary injunction calculus.). Because an ACPA violation does not require a showing of likely confusion, 14 the district court's decision to enter a preliminary injunction must have been based on its resolution of the non-ACPA claims, such as plaintiff's trademark-infringement claim. In their appeal, defendants' only argument on the merits that does not impugn the district court's ACPA findings concerns the determination that Northern Lights acted in bad faith. And as we have determined in Part III.A, supra, that finding was not clearly erroneous. Thus, no matter how we might resolve the ACPA-retroactivity issue - and we expressly eschew doing so at this time - our decision would fail to affect the validity of the injunction. 15 29 In sum, we conclude that defendants have identified no basis for overturning the preliminary injunction already in place. We therefore affirm its issuance by the district court. 30