Key takeaways:
- The Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower court ruling in favor of VIP Products LLC in a trademark dispute with Jack Daniel’s Properties LLC.
- Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the lower court should have taken the use of the trademark into account when making its ruling.
- The Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for Jack Daniel’s and other companies that rely on trademarks to protect their products.
The Supreme Court has sided with whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s in a trademark dispute with the makers of the Bad Spaniels dog toy. On Thursday, the court unanimously overturned a lower court ruling and sent the case back for further review.
The dispute began when VIP Products LLC, the makers of the Bad Spaniels dog toy, created a rubber chew toy that mimics the iconic square bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. Jack Daniel’s Properties LLC, the company that owns the trademark for the whiskey, sued VIP Products for trademark infringement.
The lower court ruled in favor of VIP Products, but the Supreme Court disagreed. In an unanimous decision authored by Justice Elena Kagan, the high court said that the lower court’s reasoning was flawed and that it was not appropriate to rule in favor of VIP Products when the company had used a trademark as a trademark.
The Supreme Court did not decide whether VIP Products had violated trademark law, but instead sent the case back to the lower courts for further consideration. Kagan wrote that the use of the trademark fell within the “heartland of trademark law” and that the lower court should have taken this into account when making its ruling.
The Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for Jack Daniel’s and other companies that rely on trademarks to protect their products. It is unclear what the outcome of the case will be, but the Supreme Court’s ruling has given Jack Daniel’s a new chance to win the dispute.
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