Trademark Law

“What’s in a Name?” Billions of Dollars, That’s What

March 22, 2016
International Law, Trademark Law

Travis Waller, MJLST Staffer

Cease-and-desist letters have long been one of the most commonly used, and perhaps more potent, of the tools relied upon by organizations and legal counsel to cut short unauthorized 3rd party use of material relating to that company’s trademarks. In 2013, Marcella David published a fascinating article in vol. 14 of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology entitled “Trademark Unraveled: The U.S. Olympic Committee Versus Knitters of the World”. This article discussed the “scandal” surrounding the U.S Olympic Committee’s (USOC) harshly worded cease-and-desist letter sent to the operators of a website for knitters, called ravelry.com. What did ravelry.com do to receive this response? Ravelry.com hosted a kind of knitting competition, which it called the “ravelmpics”, in which the site would promote various events (such as the afghan marathon) and award “blog badges” to the winner of these events. Ravelry.com even had commemorative pins made up to memorialize the event.

Soon after the announcement of the “ravelmpics”, the USOC sent a cease-and-desist letter to ravelry.com. The outrage surrounding the USOC’s cease-and-desist letter (which complained that the “ravelympics” made light of Olympic athlete’s lifetime of training and dedication, among other things) was immediate and intense, so much so that the USOC actually apologized to ravelry.com for the letter twice, as well as blamed the contents of the letter on an over-zealous summer associate within the organization’s legal department.

While this event may mark the upper limits of the strange when it comes to brand protection, the Olympic committees appear to have not lost their appetite for using their trademark rights in the word “Olympic” as a sword, as the International Olympic Committee recently carved up the name of a Portland charcuterie shop, now known as Olympia Provisions.

Bologna, right? Not necessarily. (Olympia Provisions prides itself on it’s salami). While organizations like the USOC’s actions against these companies may seem harsh – even ridiculous – at first blush, there can be very real harms to an organization’s branding efforts and trademark protection if prevention of unauthorized use is not vigorously enforced. Remember Aspirin? Linoleum? Trampoline? These names, which have now fallen into common use as terms for items, used to be trademarks. That is, aspirin used to denote a brand of acetylsalicylic acid, made by the company Bayer, and branded as “aspirin”.

This loss of rights is due to an aspect of trademark law that allows the expiration of trademark protection for certain marks that lose their status as “source identifiers”. While it may be difficult now to imagine the word “Olympic” as ever losing its connection to the Olympic Games, words have a funny way of changing meaning simply through their usage over time. To this point, consider “literally”, which today is synonymous with both “actually” and “figuratively” (“literally” antonyms of each other).

Aside from the USOC, the NFL is another large entity that actively enforces it’s use of the “SUPER BOWL” mark through cease-and-desist letters, and does so out of many of the same fears that the USOC uses in justifying it’s strict enforcement of it’s marks.

To bring this discussion to a head, cease-and-desist letters are probably more a tool of necessity than an expression of corporate malice. While there may be the rare occasion of an “over-zealous summer associate” or two, the astronomical economic value associated with the trademarks of many of the worlds most famous brands provides ample incentive to stymie even the most negligible 3rd party uses, strong likelihood of confusion or not. This is because, like it or not, language is slippery, and far is the fall to “generic”.

Are Trademark’s a Medium for Free Speech?: Federal Circuit Considers Whether Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act Violates the First Amendment

October 6, 2015
Constitutional Law, Intellectual Property, Trademark Law

Michael Laird, MJLST Staffer

The Federal Circuit recently heard arguments en banc in a case considering the relationship between intellectual property regimes, specifically trademark law, and freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The long-term rule comes from the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals—the predecessor to the Federal Circuit—in the case In re McGinley. 660 F.2d 481 (C.C.P.A. 1981). There, the court held: “with respect to appellant’s First Amendment rights, it is clear that PTO’s refusal to register appellant’s mark [as a trademark] does not affect his right to use it. No conduct is proscribed, and no tangible form of expression is suppressed.” Id. at 484. Under that traditional rule, trademark law was held consistent with the first amendment because an applicant is still permitted to use a mark, whether or not it is trademark eligible. However, that precedent may be at risk.

On Friday, October 3, the Federal Circuit heard arguments for In re Tam on the question of whether § 2(a) of the Lanham Act is consistent with the right of free speech. Section 2(a) bars trademark eligibility for a mark that “consists of or comprises of immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.” 28 U.S.C. § 1052(a). In Tam, § 2(a) was the basis for denying trademark registration for “The Slants”, the name of an Asian-American band because of its disparagement of those of Asian descent.

The court appeared to latch on to concerns that the logic of McGinley would be applicable in the copyright regime since rejection of a copyright would also not inhibit the applicant’s right to use that material. The court asked: “would [it] be constitutional and not a first amendment violation if Congress enacted a statute that said, ‘we’re going to regulate Copyrights and not allow copyright registration to issue to scandalous, immoral, or disparaging copyrights?’” Recording of Oral Arguments, In re Tam, No. 2014-1203 at 39:13 (Fed. Cir. October 2, 2015). The Government conceded, and Court appeared to agree that Congress could not bar disparaging art from copyright registration, as it does with trademarks. See id. at 39:33.

If a work cannot be denied copyright registration because the government concludes the work is disparaging, then some distinction between a copyright and trademark must exist for the government to reject a trademark on that basis. The Government was mostly unsuccessful in providing a means to distinguish the two regimes. The court, however, discussed a few possibilities.

First, the nature of speech in copyrighted material differs from the marks which are eligible for trademark protection. Copyrightable material may involve fundamental political speech and other private speech, which is protected under a heightened scrutiny by the first amendment. Id. at 41:30. Conversely, trademarks, as a means to associate the producer of goods and a brand or logo, constitutes commercial speech.

Second, as one judge stated: “the distinction that could be made is that in copyright, if the government has these limitations it’s so coercive that it essentially…prevents you from [certain] speech. Whereas the trademark realm, although it takes away some benefits of federal registration…it’s not so coercive that the restriction is a burden on free speech.” Id. at 44:30. This argument relates to McGinley, since independent of whether a trademark is granted or denied, the mark owner has the right to use his or her mark in public. In the copyright realm however, the logic of McGinley fails because the denial of a copyright might actually chill speech because of the risk that it will be misappropriated by someone else.

Third, the court differentiated the purpose of the copyright and trademark regimes: “isn’t a copyright a forum for the expression of the arts…whereas a trademark goes to the very heart of stability in the marketplace?” Id. at 5:23. Like a distinction between the nature of a trademark and copyright, the purpose of the systems diverge. Copyright is inherently protective of speech generally. Yet, most trademarks do not concern traditional speech, but protecting an association between the producer of a good and a brand or other mark.

Whether any argument will persuade the court that trademark law is distinct from copyright in some way that permits a disparagement bar to trademark registration remains to be seen. Notably, the court need not resolve the issue, if it were to determine that § 2(a) should be upheld or rejected based on the whether a trademark constitutes private, public, or commercial speech. Either way, the implications of the court’s ruling could impact another major ongoing disparagement case concerning the Washington Redskins’ trademark which is being appealed in the Fourth Circuit. If you are interested in listening to the argument in full, you can find a copy here.

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