Clarification - Not Necessary to *Register* the Mark/Dress for Protection
 

Hello Rain Man,
Actually, there is two ways that you can get protection under law in the trade mark/trade dress arena. First, you can *register* a mark or dress; second, you can be deemed to have what courts common law protection for a mark or dress (no registration required). To get common law protection, all you have to do is to prove that you have invested enough time, effort and maybe cash toward the goal of ensuring that when a consumer sees your mark or dress with the product or service that you are providing, that the consumer recognizes the connection. Again, the test is whether there is a likelihood of consumer confusion when the other person uses the same or similar mark/dress for the same or similar product.

Again, you don't have to register a mark or dress in order for the law to give you rights in it.

The main distinction in treatment if you do not register your mark/dress is that the law will only provide you with protection for the geographical area that your product and mark/dress covered. This is b/c the law does not expect for person A living in Cali to be familiar with your mark and accompanying product/service if you are only using it in some corner of say, Rhode Island so the law will refuse to find that person in California has infringed when the person could not reasonably even know that you were using the mark/dress for the your product/service. But if you *registered* the mark, the mark would be published online at the USPTO site and published in the trademark registry and everyone in the U.S. would at least be on constructive notice and therefore, the courts would be willing to find infringement, even if the alleged infringer is not in a location where the owner of the mark/dress is doing business.

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Further, you mentioned that if Ford trademarked "Motorcraft" for use with parts x and another car manufacturer uses "Motor Car" for similar parts x, no trademark infringement has occurred.

I guess that I agree with your example in this case. However, it's not the case (and I'm not sure if you were saying that it is - I couldn't tell) that just b/c a spelling is different or the words are different but they mean the same or sound the same, that a person will be able to avoid a court finding infringement. It's not that easy - remember, the test is consumer confusion, not whether actual word/dress is exactly the same. The courts use a number of factors that will allow them to find trademark/trade dress infringement even if there is a change in spelling or slight change in wording, but a consumer would still be confused into thinking that its the same.
For example, the court uses factors such as sound, sight, spelling, meaning of the wording to also consider whether there has been infringement. These are just some of the factors that go into evaluating whether infringement has occurred.

SC

I was coming back to post more information about why this may be a sustainable (and maybe even winnable) law suit but I see SummerChild has done a great job of that!!

Awwww Kimmie1913!!! To have a real live lawyer like you say that makes a lowly law school student like me feel so great.

Thanks so much. Happy Holidays!
SC

I know some people call it "pari" so whomever wrote it must have thought it was spelled that way too.

When checking my hotmail, I ran across those annoying spam :mad: emails from Big Walt for his history books.

Question.... could Big Walt also be sued? I have never read any of his books, but the covers are printed in each orgs color and they do feature a symbol that is widely know to be associated with each org.

HK, I'm curious to know - what's on the covers?
SC

http://www.blackgreekbooks.com/twentypearls.html
and just click on each org and it shows the cover.

Now, granted I do not profess to know what is or isn't copyrighted for each org but for some, he does use symbols that are widely known and associated with org, uses each org's colors and greek letters.

The elephant is not an official symbol of DST, which is what he uses on that book cover.

HK, at first glance, nothing on the cover for the unauthorized Alpha Kappa Alpha book makes me think that a claim could be brought for trademark or trade dress infringement. Also, in order to commit copyright infringement, he'd have to copy something that is copyrighted (like a passage from some other text, etc.).
SC

ttt (Outcome?)
 

Was there ever an outcome on this lawsuit, or was it settled out of court? :confused: