This case is an example of a company’s trademark being violated. A trademark is a word or symbol that differentiates one company’s products/services from another's. For a consumer, a trademark guarantees that he or she is buying the real item while protecting the company from other businesses using unfair and unethical practices. This case made it to a federal court because Warner Brothers had met the four-factor test for injunctive relief, which is a court order to stop an action, in this case stopping the release of Global’s “Age of Hobbits.” On November 7, 2012, a complaint was filed for trademark infringement and state law unfair competition by Warner Brothers Entertainment towards the works of Global Asylum, Inc. Warner Brothers contended that Asylum’s, “Age of Hobbit,” infringed on their rights to the trademark “Hobbit.” Warner …show more content…
In order for the courts to prevail on the merits of the infringement claim, Warner Brothers had to show protectable ownership interest in the subjected trademark and that Asylum’s use of the trademark was likely to cause confusion to the consuming public. As stated before, Warner Brothers had the trademark registered in various forms. Movie title registration, however, was not a for that was shown in court. This required the court to explore other options. One option they explored was, whether or not the “Hobbit” mark had a secondary meaning within the market. Warner Brothers cited evidence that about half of the four hundred randomly selected surveys, respondents associated “Hobbit” with author, J.R.R Tolkein. Warner Brothers also noted that they had extensive use to the word Hobbit due to previous usage in the Lord of the Ring’s Trilogy. With this evidence it was constituted that Hobbit did have second meaning, but was always associated with Tolkein’s work. This fulfilled the first factor to the infringement claim (Warner Brothers,