TY Inc. v. Perryman’s Empirical Analysis
306 F.3d 509 · 2002
Citation profile
13 federal appellate ·
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1125 (§ 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act))
Relies on Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc. · Panavision International, L.P. v. Toeppen · Hormel Foods Corporation v. Jim Henson Productions Inc · Mead Data Central Inc v. Toyota Motor Sales Usa Inc · Nabisco Inc Nabisco Brands Company v. Pf Brands Inc Pepperidge Farm Inc
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“consumer search costs will rise if a trademark becomes associated with a variety of unrelated products. Suppose an upscale restaurant calls itself “Tiffany.” There is little danger that the consuming public will think it’s dealing with a branch of the Tiffany jewelry store if it patronizes this restaurant. But when consumers next see the name “Tiffany” they may think about both the restaurant and the jewelry store, and if so the efficacy of the name as an identifier of the store will be diminished. Consumers will have to think harder— incur as it were a higher imagination cost — to recognize the name as the name of the store. So “blurring” is one form of dilution. Now suppose that the “restaurant” that adopts the name “Tiffany” is actually a striptease joint. Again, and indeed even more certainly than in the previous case, consumers will not think the striptease joint under common ownership with the jewelry store. But because of the inveterate tendency of the human mind to proceed by association, every time they think of the word “Tiffany” their image of the fancy jewelry store will be tarnished by the association of the word with the strip joint. So “tárnishment” is. a second form of dilution. Analytically it is a subset of blurring, since it reduces the distinctness of the trademark as a signifíer of the trademarked product or service.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the fundamental purpose of a trademark is to reduce consumer search costs by providing a concise and unequivocal identifier of the particular source of particular goods.” Ty Inc. v. Penyman, 306 F.3d 509, 510 (7th Cir.2002). The Lanham Act does not aim to address a defendant’s moral culpability or”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.