We can rest easy. Last Thursday the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion (here) upholding the decision of the US District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
Appellee Fortres Grand Corp. sells computer security software under the mark "Clean Slate." They describe the software at their website:
Discards unwanted user changes at log off or reboot, No Partitioning Ever, Effortless Windows Updates Support, Seamless AV Updates, Easy Application Blocking, Enable-Disable-Configure with No Rebooting Ever, Super Flexible, Easy, Secure!Sounds pretty good.
Anyway, Fortres Grand sued Warner Brothers for trademark infringement.
Now, you may have heard of Warner Brothers. Their main thing is movies, music, cartoons, stuff like that. Warner Brothers doesn't market computer security software. And that's the main problem that the district court, and the appellate court, identified with the suit. In The Dark Knight Rises, there's a MacGuffin in the form of a piece of software that will completely erase a person's past. The software is referred to in the movie as "clean slate" software.
Get it? Unfortunately (?) for Fortres Grand, the use of the term "clean slate" in the movie doesn't constitute infringement of their mark, because there's no likelihood of confusion - potential customers of Fortres Grand are not likely to buy copies of Dark Knight Rises, thinking that they're getting computer security software.
They might have grounds for complaining of disparagement, except that in the movie, the software actually works. In fact, it occurs to me that Warner Bros. may have a basis for charging Fortres Grand for product placement.
Or maybe not.
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