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An Idaho cheese manufacturer with a history of trademark litigation has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which protects companies from foreclosure while they restructure debt.

The Nelson Ricks Cheese Co. of Sugar City, Idaho, owes nearly $700,000 to fewer than 50 creditors and owns assets worth $860,000, according to bankruptcy documents.

Magic Valley Quality Milk Producers, a dairy farmers’ cooperative in Jerome, Idaho, is the cheese company’s largest unsecured creditor with a claim of more than $250,000.

The company claims it earned $800,000 in revenue last year, down from more than $1 million the previous year.

A federal judge recently held Nelson Ricks Cheese Co. in contempt of court for trying to prevent the Nevada-based Lakeview Cheese Co. from collecting $300,000 in attorney fees after winning a trademark dispute.

The two companies began battling over trademarks in 2013, when Lakeview filed a lawsuit alleging it had bought the Banquet cheese trademark from Nelson Ricks but that company kept using the brand.

Nelson Ricks was ultimately enjoined by a court order from using the Banquet trademark and agreed to settle the case, but then filed its own claim against Lakeview in 2016.

A federal judge determined that Lakeview had inadvertently left a trademark owned by Nelson Ricks on the Banquet Cheese website after buying the brand, but that it hadn’t created consumer confusion contrary to federal law.

“There is no indication that Lakeview intended to use the mark at all, let alone deceive anyone,” the judge said.

The judge awarded $300,000 in attorney fees to Lakeview, which was upheld in 2019 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 9th Circuit affirmed that Lakeview hadn’t violated trademark law and that the $300,000 attorney fee award was not an “abuse of discretion.”

Nelson Ricks’ lawsuit was determined to be “exceptional in its frivolity and disrespect,” as the company “did not have evidence to support any of its claims” and “pursued its litigation in an unreasonable manner,” the 9th Circuit said.

Since then, though, Chief U.S. District Judge David Nye — who oversees the underlying case — has found that Nelson Ricks “continues to thwart Lakeview’s lawful efforts to collect on its valid judgment” while defying court orders.

In September, Nye sanctioned the cheese company for contempt of court and issued a “writ of execution” to enforce the $300,000 judgment against other firms owned by its CEO, Mike Greenberg, who apparently “has been, or will, move assets” to avoid collection efforts.