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Measuring Trademark Dilution By Tarnishment, Suneal Bedi, David Reibstein
Measuring Trademark Dilution By Tarnishment, Suneal Bedi, David Reibstein
Indiana Law Journal
The law of trademark tarnishment—a type of trademark dilution—is in disarray. The
basic definition is deceptively simple. Trademark tarnishment occurs when a junior
mark harms the reputation of a substantially similar existing senior trademark by
associating itself with something perverse or deviant. However, it turns out that
Congress and the courts disagree over the prima facie evidence necessary to prove
its existence. The problem is that federal law and related legal principles are simply
ill-equipped to adequately analyze this unique market-driven doctrine. To make
matters worse, legal scholars cannot even agree on whether trademark tarnishment
can empirically exist in the …