TTABlog Tweets and Re-Tweets
If you are not a Twitter subscriber, you missed these recent TTABlog tweets and re-tweets:
Guess? Who: Gucci “wins” injunction, $4.6 million in trademark suit against Guess? http://j.mp/Mv3i7E
RT @TrademarkBlog: Comcast Protests “Shake Down” of Alleged BitTorrent Pirates | TorrentFreak http://bit.ly/NyOsio
RT @LexisNexis: Parody as a Defense to Trademark Infringement http://bit.ly/MvspEu
RT @UNHLaw: Professor Susan Richey weighs in on NH legal debate that began over commercial use of JD Salinger's image: http://ow.ly/buWMM
U.S. and Cuba Clash over Havana Club Trademark http://j.mp/MRhtXy
RT @RTushent: Shouldn't we give up on the "brand as adjective" rule?: STK LLC v. Backrack, Inc., Cancellation No. 92049332 http://bit.ly/LChYOb
RT @ERicGoldman: Trademark Registrant Isn't Required to Shut Down Competitive Keyword Advertisers--STK v Backrack http://j.mp/L6GM3u
RT @INTA: Have a #TrademarkLaw question on #trademark enforcement, dilution, or something else? This is a great #INTAresource - http://ow.ly/blw7v
posted by John L. Welch @ 6/18/2012
1 comments
1 Comments:
Show me somewhere in the Lanham Act where "parody" is listed as a defense? Are we getting judges today who are too lazy or ignorant to understand the differences among trademark, copyright and patent law? Maybe so, or maybe a few more academics who believe that these are equal but different branches of intellectual property law might consider writing something scholarly to educate the judiciary of this century.
Only an "activist" judge would write trademark parody into the law since it is nowhere to be found. Calling it a defense by parody since a judge finds it "funny" isn't really a very good way of applying a statute that does not mention the word parody.
Conflating copyright cases and misguided trademark cases about titles to movies with someone trying to USE another's well known trademark to make a dollar off trading off of the well known brand wasn't acceptable in 1910 or 1960, so why is this something to debate now? Have trademark owners so overplayed the dilution card that judges are willing to disregard the trading off card that has been around for a century:
'In Florence Mfg. Co. v. J. C. Dowd & Co., ., 178 F. at page 75, (2nd Cir 1910) we find a classical statement of the principle: 'It is so easy for the honest business man, who wishes to sell his goods upon their merits, to select from the entire material universe, which is before him, symbols, marks and coverings which by no possibility can cause confusion between his goods and those of competitors, that the courts look with suspicion upon one who, in dressing his goods for the market, approaches so near to his successful rival that the public may fail to distinguish between them."
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