Harold P. Weinberger is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. In his 39 years of practice, all at Kramer Levin, Mr. Weinberger has handled all types of complex civil litigations in courts all over the country and in arbitrations, in areas ranging from intellectual property (licensing, false advertising, trademarks and copyright), contracts, mergers and acquisitions and real estate, among others. Mr. Weinberger has tried dozens of case to juries, judges and arbitrators and argued appeals in the New York Court of Appeals and the First, Second, Third, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits.

Mr. Weinberger heads Kramer Levin’s Advertising Group and is among the leading litigators in the country in that field. He regularly advises clients on prospective advertising and has been lead counsel in the litigation of many false advertising cases under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, representing both plaintiffs and defendants.

Mr. Weinberger’s most recent representation was of PBM Products, which manufactures store brand infant formula for retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and others. PBM sued Mead Johnson, makers of Enfamil, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for falsely claiming that Enfamil provided superior nutrition compared to PBM’s products. In November of 2009, a jury found in PBM’s favor and awarded PBM $13.5 million in damages, one of the largest reported false advertising verdicts. The Court also dismissed Mead Johnson’s $40 million Lanham Act counterclaim at the close of the evidence, denied Mead Johnson’s laches defense, and issued a permanent injunction barring Mead Johnson from making any false claims about PBM’s infant formula and directing Mead Johnson to retrieve the offending advertisements from the public domain.

Mr. Weinberger’s other recent false advertising matters include his representation of Neutrogena in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware in which the Court enjoined Schering-Plough’s advertising for its Coppertone Sport products while leaving intact most of the claims in Neutrogena’s ads. Mr. Weinberger also successfully defended advertising claims by The Procter & Gamble Company for Tampax Pearl tampons in an action brought by Playtex Products Co. in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the past few years Mr. Weinberger also represented of McNeil-PPC, Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson and the manufacturer of Reach® dental floss, in which he obtained an injunction against Pfizer, Inc., the manufacturer of Listerine® mouthwash, precluding Pfizer from making false claims that Listerine is “as effective as floss,” and requiring Pfizer to cover over labels on product bottles displaying the offending claim. Mr. Weinberger represented AstraZeneca in a false advertising dispute with TAP Pharmaceuticals in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, in which he defeated a preliminary injunction motion seeking to enjoin AstraZeneca’s “Better is Better” comparative advertising campaign for Nexium,® the country’s best-selling prescription drug. In another recent case, Mr. Weinberger obtained a judgment on behalf of Johnson & Johnson enjoining CIBA Vision Corporation from making false claims comparing its new O2OPTIX® contact lens product with ACUVUE® lenses and also awarding corrective advertising. In addition, following a jury trial, Mr. Weinberger obtained a verdict dismissing a complaint of Colgate-Palmolive, Inc. that advertising claims by The Procter & Gamble Company comparing its Crest Whitestrips® tooth bleaching product to Colgate’s Simply White® product were false or misleading.

Mr. Weinberger’s cases have generated a good deal of Lanham Act precedent, including three significant appellate court decisions: The Procter & Gamble Company v. Chesebrough-Ponds, Inc., 747 F.2d 114 (2d Cir. 1984); Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Richardson-Vicks, Inc., 902 F.2d 222 (3d Cir. 1990) and L&F Products v. The Procter & Gamble Company, 45 F.3d 709 (2d Cir. 1995). Another seminal decision arose from Mr. Weinberger’s successful defense of advertising for the Aleve® analgesic, American Home Products Corp. v. The Procter & Gamble Company, et al. 871 F. Supp. 739 (D.N.J. 1994). In addition, Mr. Weinberger’s successful prosecution of the first Lanham Act case dealing entirely with detailing of sales representatives for pharmaceutical products resulted in a significant decision, Zeneca Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company, 1999 WL 509471 (S.D.N.Y. July 19, 1999).

Mr. Weinberger has also defended class actions under state consumer fraud statutes involving products such as contact lenses, shampoos and detergents in federal and state courts throughout the country and has represented clients in connection with advertising disputes before the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Mr. Weinberger has spoken on issues relating to advertising at cosmetics and pharmaceutical industry legal conferences and at ABA, PLI and other CLE seminars. He has authored numerous publications on the Lanham Act and related false advertising issues. In addition, Mr. Weinberger is a lecturer in law at Columbia University Law School, where he teaches a seminar in false advertising law. Mr. Weinberger has been recognized as one of The Best Lawyers in America in Advertising Law (2007-2009). He is listed in Chambers USA – America’s Leading Business Lawyers (2006-2009) and Legal 500 US (2009). He has been listed in all issues of Super Lawyers (2006-2009), a special supplement to The New York Times; in 2009 he was ranked among the top 100 in New York. The 2008 and 2010 editions of Benchmark: Litigation singled out Mr. Weinberger as one of New York’s “Litigation Stars” and specifically cited him for his "commercial litigation practice."

J.D., magna cum laude, Columbia Law School, 1970

• Notes and Comments Editor, Columbia Law Review, 1969-1970

B.A., City College of the City University of New York, 1967

Honorable Paul R. Hays, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1970 - 1971

New York, 1971
District of Columbia, 1992

U.S. Supreme Court, 1979
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1973
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, 1989
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 2002
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, 2000
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 1997
U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, 1973
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, 1973
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 1973

Teaching
Lecturer in Law, Columbia Law School (Seminar in False Advertising Law)

Publications

• “Lanham Act False Advertising Litigation: A Potent Weapon in Prescription and OTC Drug Promotion,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner and Tobias B. Jacoby), Bloomberg Law Report: Health Law, February 2009. 
• “False Advertising Law in the Second Circuit,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner and Seth F. Schinfeld) New York Law Journal, October 29, 2007. 
• “Where There’s (Not) a Will (Maybe) There’s a Way,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner and Norman C. Simon), New York Law Journal, May 8, 2006. 
• “Home Truths for False Advertising,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner), Scrips Magazine, May 2005. 
• “Need to Prove an Impliedly False Advertising Claim?” (with Jonathan M. Wagner) New York Law Journal—IP Supplement, October 12, 2004. 
• “Lanham Act False Advertising Litigation: The Basics,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner), The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, October 2003. 
• “Defining Commercial Advertising or Promotion: Interpretations Vary as to What Types of Activities Are Actionable Under the Lanham Act,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner and Norman C. Simon), New York Law Journal, May 12, 2003. 
• “Testing Key in False Advertising Cases,” (with Jonathan M.Wagner and Norman C. Simon), New York Law Journal, May 13, 2002. 
• “Literally False—Law Continues to Change,” (with Jonathan M. Wagner and Lauren Freeman-Bosworth), New York Law Journal— IP Supplement, May 1, 2001.
• “Prescription Drug Wars: Proving Claims of Competitor’s Reps Are False,” New York Law Journal—IP Supplement, July 2000. 
• “Definition of Lanham Act’s ‘Advertising or Promotion’ Adeptly Stretched by the Courts,” New York Law Journal—IP Supplement, March 1999. 
• “Courts Considering Controls in False Advertising Surveys,” New York Law Journal—IP Supplement, August 1998. 
• “Resolving Advertising Disputes,” The Advertiser, June 1996. 
• “Federal Fight Against Fraud,” New York Law Journal—IP Supplement, December 1995.

Presentations 

• The Role of Controls in Lanham Act Surveys, National Advertising Division Conference, 2009. 
• The Relevance of FDA Regulation to Lanham Act Challenges Involving Drug Promotion, American Conference Institute, 2007. 
• Recent Lanham Act Cases: Literal and Implied Claims, The Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association, 2005. 
• Defending Lanham Act False Advertising Cases, American Intellectual Property Law Association, 2002.
• Recent Developments in False Advertising, American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, 2001. 
• Recent Developments in False Advertising, The Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association, 2001.
• Seeking and Obtaining Injunctive Relief in Lanham Act Cases, International Trademark Association, 1999.
• Resolving Advertising Disputes, Business Development Associates, 1999. 
• Consumer Class Actions Under State Consumer Protection Laws, The Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association, 1998. 
• The Burden of Proof: Relationship between the Lanham Act, Federal Regulatory Statutes and Industry Standards, American Bar Association, Section of Antitrust Law, 1998. 
• Advertising on the New Media: Remedies for Disgruntled Competitors, American Conference Institute, 1998. 
• Advertising in the New Media, American Conference Institute, 1997. 
• Lanham Act Section 43(a) - Standards and Trends in False Advertising Cases, American Conference Institute, 1995. 
• Relationship between the Lanham Act and Federal Regulatory Statutes, Nonprescription Drug Manufacturers Association, 1992.

American Bar Association, Section of Intellectual Property Law
The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Member, Committees on: Federal Legislation, 1974-1977;
Product Liability, 1983-1986;
Trademarks and Unfair Competition, 1994-1996