Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Is A Rose By Any Other Image Still A Rose? Disconnecting Dilution’S Similarity Test From Traditional Trademark Concepts, Jasmine C. Abdel-Khalik

Faculty Works

Federal dilution doctrine suffers the typical growing pains of an adolescent struggling to determine its identity and boundaries. Congress did not create a federal dilution claim until 1995 and significantly amended in 2006. As currently conceived in the Lanham Act, a federal dilution by blurring claim involves the owner of a famous, [senior] mark bringing suit against the owner of a junior mark, which must be used after the senior mark has achieved fame, but only if the junior mark is sufficiently similar to impair the distinctiveness of the senior mark. The statute identifies several factors that can be used …