Registering Product Design and the Useful Limitation
2 min read
by Dennis Crouch
TBL Licensing v. Vidal (4th Cir. 2023)
The Timberland Boot commerce costume case is pending earlier than the Fourth Circuit, elevating some attention-grabbing questions in regards to the function of product commerce costume vs design patents vs copyright vs utility patents.
Timberland boots have been first bought within the Nineteen Seventies with a novel design that shortly resonated with shoppers. The corporate has now bought greater than $1.3 billion of the boots within the US, with greater than $100 million in gross sales most years. The boot design is effectively acknowledged as an icon. The picture above isn’t an precise boot bought by the corporate, however one created by an AI with the immediate “timberland boot.”
In 2015 Timberland started the method of registering the boot design as a trademark. The proposed registration filings centered on iconic parts of the boot, together with the silhouette options proven above. However, the USPTO refused to register the mark. The examiner discovered that the design lacks secondary which means and can also be too useful. The TTAB affirmed, however solely centered on the shortage of secondary which means. At that time Timberland filed a civil motion underneath 15 U.S.C. § 1071(b) searching for a court docket order to register the design mark. The district court docket sided with the USPTO, holding that Timberland had did not show (1) that the design was nonfunctional; and (2) that customers acknowledge the design as a novel supply identifier. The case is now pending enchantment earlier than the Fourth Circuit.
One of many USPTO’s key arguments within the case focuses on timing. Timberland boots have been available on the market for 50 years, and based on the report the corporate has “by no means has demanded that opponents stop and desist from
promoting look-alike boots.” And, though plenty of of us acknowledge the look of Timberland boots, it seems that {the marketplace} is flooded with look-alike alternate options.
INTA has filed an amicus transient in assist of Timberland arguing that the district court docket erred in its performance evaluation. Reasonably than analyzing whether or not the boot design “as an entire” is useful, the District Courtroom incorrectly disectected the general look of the Icon Boot design into constituent parts, with out addressing whether or not the mix of parts (even when individually useful) fashioned an entire that was extra than simply the sum of its components.
Learn the briefs right here:
