Friday, November 16, 2012

Referential uses don't cause blurring: an example

I love clever ads that use another, noncompeting entity's trademark to make a point about the advertiser's own services--Tracfone's "Even Viagra couldn't make this hard" touting the simplicity of its calling plan is a personal favorite--and I just came across this actual litigated case involving one: Jennifer Leather's "Only Revlon has more colors."  Revlon Consumer Products Corp. v. Jennifer Leather Broadway, Inc., 858 F.Supp. 1268 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).  Given the age of the case, it's perhaps not surprising that there's no initial interest confusion argument; defendant prevailed, even against Revlon's state dilution claim, because Revlon couldn't show confusion and because there was no incongruity the court could see between the meaning of "Revlon" sought by Revlon and the meaning of "Revlon" invoked by Jennifer Leather.

No comments: