Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:40:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110819/11580215602/i-coulda-been-credenza-brando-estate-sues-over-couch-named-brando.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110819/11580215602/i-coulda-been-credenza-brando-estate-sues-over-couch-named-brando.shtml sued over a Bogart line of couches and the estate of Marlon Brando had sued over a Brando line of boots. Shake those two stories up together... and you get a new lawsuit, again from the Brando estate, complaining about a Brando sofa and how it violates Marlon Brando's publicity rights and trademarks. Can't you see the similarity? I'm wondering what moron in a hurry sees any similarity or would be confused here?

* Separately, on the headline, I actually came up with this headline independently, but as I was preparing this I saw that The Daily used the same line. It's too tempting not to use it, but did want to acknowledge that they got it out first...

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]]> morons-in-a-hurry http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110819/11580215602 Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:41:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081030/2310572695.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081030/2310572695.shtml to stop using a design that shows a couch being unwrapped from a candy bar. Hershey's sued the furniture company, claiming it violated their trademark on unwrapping chocolate bars: But here's the thing: even the judge admits that trademark law shouldn't apply here because it's a totally different business and there's little chance of customer confusion: "While both parties cater to the general public, there is no indication that their customers are predominantly the same. Even if their customer bases overlap to some extent ... the risk of consumers confusing a furniture outlet with a candy store, or vice versa, appears remote." Those are all things a judge says right before denying the trademark claim, but in this case, it went the other way. If a moron in a hurry isn't likely to be confused, then there's no trademark infringement. The furniture store wasn't even using the image yet -- but just had it in a contest for truck designs. At least the company hadn't spent too much money painting up all the trucks.

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