Resolving Disputes Over the Use of Trademarks and Celebrity Images

In this course, Mitchell Stabbe of Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP will discuss the competing but related principles underlying trademark law, rights of publicity, and First Amendment law and how they are applied (often somewhat subjectively) in disputes between trademark owners or public personalities and the publishers of entertainment content. Topics to be covered include: 

• Overview of the different interests that trademarks, the right of publicity, and the First Amendment are intended to protect

• Discussion of cases involving the use of genuine trademarks to identify fictitious products and the unauthorized use of branded goods in entertainment media and the unauthorized use of celebrities in fictional works

• Analysis of whether apparently inconsistent cases can be reconciled

Learning Objectives:

1. Gain an understanding of the principles and objectives of trademark law, the First Amendment, and the right of publicity

2. Examine how disputes are resolved between parties asserting conflicting rights over the use in entertainment content of trademarks, branded products, and the name, likeness, or other indicia of the identity of public figures

3. Identify where the line is drawn – or sometimes is blurred – over competing rights