The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Jack Daniel’s over an Arizona company in a dispute over a poop-themed dog toy that parodies its iconic liquor bottle. abc15
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Jack Daniel’s in a dispute over a poop-themed dog toy that parodies its iconic liquor bottle, ruling that a lower court erred when it said the toy was covered by the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
Though the court’s decision is a win for Jack Daniel’s – which argued that an appeals court made a mistake when it said the toy was “non-commercial” and therefore enjoyed constitutional protection – the justices declined to grant the distiller’s request to completely throw out the test an appeals court used when it ruled in favor of the toy, a move that would have given trademark holders wide latitude to sue companies that parody their marks on consumer goods.
Thursday’s decision was the second the court handed down this term in an intellectual property dispute. In May, the justices ruled against the late Andy Warhol, saying the artist infringed on a photographer’s copyright when he created a series of silk screens based on a photograph of the late singer Prince.
Kagan went on to list a number of different marks the company pokes fun at, drawing laughter from Justice Clarence Thomas: “Doggie Walker, Dos Perros, Smella Arpaw, Canine Cola, Mountain Drool. Are all of these companies taking themselves too seriously?” “To be sure, everyone likes a good joke,” lawyers for Jack Daniel’s wrote in court papers. “But VIP’s profit-motivated ‘joke’ confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill.”
Attorneys for Jack Daniel’s told the justices in court papers that the appeals court ruling “gives copycats free license to prey on unsuspecting consumers and mark holders,” and warned that if it wasn’t reversed, companies could use trademarks they don’t own to flood the markets with allegedly unserious products.
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