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Well, there were two points about that on this case. The first was that JD hired an expert to do a blind study on whether there would be potential confusion (a
by technothrasher 3y ago
Well, there were two points about that on this case. The first was that JD hired an expert to do a blind study on whether there would be potential confusion (and that's what you have to show, potential not necessarily actual) and found that, despite what one might think, it showed there could indeed be confusion.
But also, even if you were able to show the expert's study design was badly done and/or biased, there is another prong to trademark and that is dilution. When the brand is as famous as JD, they can argue that another company copying them is causing harm to their brand's reputation. Considering this dog toy product compared JD to dog shit, the court ruled that there definitely was dilution.
The last part is if the parody is directly related to the commercial aspect of the product. The defendant in this case admittedly used the parody brand as a trademark for themselves, and so the courts found it was indeed directly related to the business aspect.
- narrator 3y agoI think you mean trademark tarnishment instead of dilution. The act of associating a trademarked product with something distasteful or disagreeable is considered a tortious offense called tarnishment. Tarnishment is when you use a Dallas Cowboy's cheerleader outfit in an adult film[1]. The filmmakers argued it was parody, but the judges didn't think the adult film was comedic. However, naming a reasonably good character in your children's film "SPA'AM" is not considered trademark tarnishment[2]. [1]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11014508973363071529&q=dallas+cowboys+tarnishment&hl=en&as_sdt=806 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=110145089733630... [2]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16188685672866891690&q=spam+tarnishment&hl=en&as_sdt=806 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=161886856728668...