Morning Call (Allentown)

 A federal judge has awarded a judgment of $294,000 against George Atiyeh of Allentown and his Supply Brokers of Pennsylvania Inc. for making and selling counterfeit T-shirts bearing emblems of National Basketball Association teams. That figure represented triple damages, because "clearly the infringing conduct was willful," Judge Edward Cahn said.

Cahn levied an additional $25,000 against Atiyeh as the "fair and appropriate costs" incurred by NBA Properties Inc. of New York, the only company with rights to use the NBA logos, in going after Atiyeh for civil contempt.

During the summer, Atiyeh hid the printing equipment he used to make the insignias - after Cahn issued an order for the machinery to remain in place.

"The machine disappeared from Atiyeh's premises and reappeared in an adjacent premises which Atiyeh also controlled," the judge noted.

Cahn said Atiyeh, president of Supply Brokers, 645 Jordan St., satisfied the contempt charge by agreeing that the machine be forfeited to NBA Properties and that the proceeds from its sale go toward costs of the contempt action.

Early in this case, Atiyeh and his company admitted making the counterfeit T-shirts and agreed to a permanent injunction.

This week, haggling over how much the penalty should be took up much of a day in the Old Lehigh County Courthouse, much of that in Cahn's chambers.

Some of it revolved around how long the counterfeiting had gone on.

NBA Properties maintained that the counterfeiting extended from some time in 1986 to June 1989.

Atiyeh and Supply Brokers contended they were in business only from some time last year to the middle of this year.

Cahn took something of a middle position - figuring the assessment from January 1988 until June.

Some of the haggling was over how much sales money was amassed.

What the parties agreed to was that the sales total should be halved to represent the cost of the blank T-shirts.

Cahn said that on the basis of Supply Brokers invoices, he figured the infringing sales at $196,000.

With the agreement of both sides to halve that, the figure became $98,000. Then, Cahn tripled it - at the request of NBA Properties - because Atiyeh's action was willful.

"I'm not making any allowance for the defendants' overhead costs," the judge said. He said he didn't have to because the counterfeit sales represented less than 6 percent of the Atiyeh company business.

Some evidence indicated that Supply Brokers had gross sales of $1.7 million a year.

Cahn said NBA Properties might file a bill for costs and an application for counsel fees relating to the permanent injunction issued in this case.

But he warned that since he levied triple damages against the defendants, he was not inclined to award counsel fees to the plaintiff.

"But I may rethink that," he said.

When NBA Properties filed the suit in July, it also named another company and several other people as defendants. As part of his order, Cahn dismissed those parties as defendants.

The suit said that since 1968, NBA Properties held exclusive rights to license others to manufacture and sell merchandise bearing NBA logos.

It charged that Atiyeh and Supply Brokers were unlicensed peddlers.