My latest paper offers a simple idea to get trademark owners to stop suing parodists, satirists, and other expressive users: make evidence of such independent referential uses of a mark a condition for proving the mark famous.https://t.co/coHQ8X7oOO— Mark Lemley (@marklemley) September 5, 2018
The sneaky genius of such an approach is that:
1) Perhaps a statistically insignificant number of marks are actually famous, but
2) they all think they are
which could actually lead to self-policing policing of #trademarks
#carrots #notsticks https://t.co/iA8gQQQr44— Trademarks Are Magic (@TimberlakeLaw) September 5, 2018
Great idea, endorsed by two of my favorite trademark brains.
What a lovely prank! Unfortunately I think an aggressive trademark owner would just as well make their dilution claims in case #40 (involving claims based on dilution, requiring a showing of fame) by displaying the trophies from cases #1-39 involving parodists.
Isn’t the recently* deceased body of a parody equally good evidence of referential use as a live parody in the wild?
* OK, OK — if case #40 is filed 30 years after the last parody was shut down, maybe the mark isn’t famous anymore.