{"id":237,"date":"2017-04-19T23:45:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T03:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=237"},"modified":"2017-04-22T10:12:41","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T14:12:41","slug":"non-trademark-use-is-a-non-infringing-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=237","title":{"rendered":"Non-Trademark Use is a Non-Infringing Use"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Oaklawn Jockety Club, Inc. v. Kentucky_Downs, LLC<\/a>,<\/em> [16-5582] (Sixth Circuit April 19, 2017), the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court dismissal of plaintiff’s trademark infringement action because defendant’s use of plaintiffs’ trademarks in its electronic horse racing games was not likely to cause confusion. \u00a0Although the case was designated “NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION,” it makes an important point about trademark\u00a0infringement: defendant must use plaintiff’s trademark as a trademark<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The district court found, and the Sixth Circuit agreed, that defendant’s marks in its animated video recreations of actual historic horse races, in order to identify the location of the race, was not a trademark use.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sixth Circuit noted that the term \u201cLocation\u201d preceding the trademarks\u00a0sufficiently explains to consumers that the trademarks are being used in a wholly descriptive
\nmanner and does not cause a likelihood of confusion as to the source of the video. \u00a0The Sixth Circuit added that the fact that\u00a0the replay is entirely generic and does not visually depict the plaintiffs’ facilities further\u00a0supports this conclusion.<\/p>\n

Because this was a non-trademark use of plaintiffs\u2019 trademarks, the Sixth Circuit did not have to reach the\u00a0question whether the fair-use defense applied. \u00a0As the Supreme Court said in Prestonettes, Inc. v. Coty, 264 U.S. 359, 368 (1924). \u201cWhen the mark is\u00a0used in a way that does not deceive the public we see no such sanctity in the word as to prevent\u00a0its being used to tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Oaklawn Jockety Club, Inc. v. Kentucky_Downs, LLC, [16-5582] (Sixth Circuit April 19, 2017), the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court dismissal of plaintiff’s trademark infringement action because defendant’s use of plaintiffs’ trademarks in its electronic horse racing games was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}