PORTLAND, Ore. — Novoluto, owner of the Womanizer patent, has obtained a default judgment of more than $2 million against the Oregon sextech company that conducted business as Lora DiCarlo until its collapse in late 2022.
Local news site Oregon Business reported last week that Uccellini, the company founded by Lora Haddock DiCarlo and Doug Layman, and which marketed the sex toy brand Lora DiCarlo, lost the patent-infringement lawsuit filed in 2020 by German pleasure product company Novoluto.
Novoluto argued that Lora DiCarlo’s Osé, Osé 2 and Baci infringed on its Womanizer patent.
According to Oregon Business, Uccellini “has not filed for bankruptcy, and the whereabouts of its principals are not known; when OB tried to reach Haddock this winter, an email request bounced back and her phone number was no longer in service.”
The Lora DiCarlo collapse was recently the subject of an in-depth Fortune article by Lux Alptraum.
“It’s a stunning fall from grace,” Alptraum wrote. “Lora Haddock DiCarlo had been the subject of glowing write-ups and interviews in outlets including The New York Times, Men’s Health, Glamour, Fast Company, Wired and This American Life. Her flagship product — a high-tech ‘hands-free’ $290 vibrator called the Osé — had landed a spot on Time’s 2019 List of Best Inventions. Now the onetime media darling has disappeared from public view, leaving behind aggrieved ex-employees, disgruntled distributors and unhappy customers. Eight former employees who spoke with Fortune describe feckless management that led to shoddy product development; a toxic work environment in which employees were sexually harassed; and financial mismanagement.”
Last month, Novoluto “filed a motion for a default judgment against the company, as well as an injunction prohibiting Uccellini and those associated with it (including directors and employees) from acting against the patent,” Oregon Business reported.
On June 1, Magistrate Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai signed an order granting that motion and Novoluto’s requested $2,165,351 in damages.
The motion stated that Uccellini failed to provide discovery and failed to defend its position, thus “frustrating the patentee’s ability to prove its case.”
Moreover, the motion added, while Haddock DiCarlo’s company “has not declared bankruptcy or otherwise formally dissolved or gone out of business, its operating status, and whether it is solvent or insolvent, and if it is in some sort of suspension or is, instead, planning to resume business activities, is entirely unknown and unknowable (by Novoluto) at this time.”
