Los Angeles Business Law Blog

California residents may be interested in a brand name trademark case that is headed to the United States Supreme Court for review. The case involves a fashion designer whose trademark application was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the grounds that the name of his clothing line is vulgar.

The clothing line is called FUCT. The USPTO rejected the owner's trademark application in 2011, citing a federal law, the Lanham Act, which prohibits trademarks containing matter that is "immoral, deceptive or scandalous.". The agency declared the name FUCT to be scandalous, calling it the past tense of a vulgar homonym.

The California-based footwear manufacturer Vans has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Target Corporation according to recent media reports. Vans claims that the retail giant's Camella sneaker copies design elements of their iconic Old Skool shoe introduced in 1977. Court documents reveal that Vans believes the Old Skool design was deliberately copied by Target to improve the market profile of its Wild Fable line or merchandise, of which the Camella sneaker is a part.

Vans alleges in its lawsuit that the similarity of the two sneaker designs could confuse consumers and hurt sales of its far more expensive shoes, and consumer comments appear to back up these claims. Several online reviews of the Camella sneaker mention its similarity to the Old Skool design, and one consumer even referred to the Camella shoes as 'fake Vans." Target sells the Camella shoe for $15 while a pair of Vans Old Skool sneakers cost $60.

Families in California and across the country may face conflicts when business and even intellectual property enter the picture. In one case, relatives of Phyllis Schlafly, the well-known late conservative activist, failed to block a brewery owned by a relative from trademarking their surname. A panel of the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of Saint Louis Brewing LLC, co-founded by a nephew of Schlafly. He applied in 2011 to trademark his last name for his Schlafly-branded beer.

One judge said in the ruling that through the sales of beer under the Schlafly name, it had acquired a distinctive, secondary meaning. Once that point has been reached, it is possible to trademark a surname. Between 2009 and 2014, sales of Schlafly beer reached 74.8 million bottles, cans and servings on draft. The brewery began selling beer under the name in 1991. Despite the growing popularity of the beer, other members of the family intervened in an attempt to block the trademark. Phyllis Schlafly and her son claimed that the trademark could injure their reputations by associating them with alcohol despite being well-known for their conservative politics.

California residents may be aware that the Boy Scouts of America started admitting girls in 2017, but they may not know that this decision has sparked a contentious legal dispute with the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. In a federal lawsuit filed in New York on Nov. 6, GSUSA alleges that BSA's branding of some of its offerings as "Scouting" and "Scouts"infringes on its trademarks in a way that damages its brand and confuses the public.

The trademark infringement litigation claims that BSA's rebranding will lead parents to believe that the services offered by GSUSA are not officially sanctioned scouting programs. The two organizations are not related but have coexisted amicably for more than 100 years. Unlike more conventional organizations, both BSA and GSUSA have congressional charters and the terms "Boy Scouts" and "Girl Scouts" are protected by special trademark laws.