Summary Of The Supreme Court Case Of VIP Products LLC

This case was granted by the Supreme Court on Nov 21, 2022 and involves the petitioner, Jack Daniel's Properties, suing the respondent, VIP Products LLC, regarding trademark infringement. The facts of the case involves VIP Products LLC, a manufacturer of dog toys, recreating a Jack Daniel's bottle of whiskey as a dog toy called “Bad Spaniels”. The toy also contains many jokes referencing the original bottle that are of a scatalogical nature (“Jack Daniel's Properties v. VIP Products LLC”). Jack Daniel's Properties alleges that VIP Products LLC is in violation of its trademark, and the district court found that VIP Products LLC was infringing trademark, finding dilution by tarnishment (Lawson). The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th

Code § 1125, (c)(3)(a), also leads to the argument of the type of fair use being argued by VIP Products LLC. In the district court, VIP Products LLC argues that their product falls under normative fair use, where the defendant is using the petitioner's mark to describe the petitioner's product itself. This falls under being protected by 15 U.S. Code § 1125, (c)(3)(a). During the questioning in our Supreme Court Case, VIP Products LLC affirmed that they are still arguing for normative fair use as it “Goes past inspiration” (Schissler). Normative Fair use “covers many occasions on which a party other than the trademark owner is using the mark [of] another party to refer to genuine goods or services” (“4.11 Fair Use of Trademarks - Introduction to Intellectual Property”). The district court rejected VIP Products LLC’s nominative fair use defense saying that the Bad Spaniels toy’s significant differences to the Jack Daniel’s trade dress and bottle design did not qualify it for normative fair use. I affirm this assessment, as VIP Products LLC’s ‘Bad Spaniels’ does not directly refer to Jack Daniel’s Properties, and thus, does not qualify for normative trademark. However, this means that in order for VIP Products to sell their product, they need to argue classic fair use. However, they can not do this, because classic fair use defense requires that a trademark, “is used in good faith for its primary meaning, and no consumer confusion is likely to occur” (“4.11 Fair Use of Trademarks - Introduction to Intellectual Property”). The oral argument from Jack Daniel’s said, “29% stated that they believed there were connections to Jack Daniels” (Hernandez), and VIP Products LLC said, “in a survey done by the U.S. District Court of Arizona, they found that more than 70% of surveyed customers never actually thought or considered the fact that Jack Daniel’s had or could have endorsed the product” (Schissler). Firstly, this statistic also indicates that Bad Spaniels failed