Trade dress

The examples and perspective in this article written from standpoint of USA may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

Trade dress is a legal term of art that generally refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers.^[1][2] Trade dress is a form of intellectual property.

United States

In the U.S., like trademarks, a product’s trade dress is legally protected by the Lanham Act, the federal statute which regulates trademarks and trade dress.^[3] Trade dress protection is intended to protect consumers from packaging or appearance of products that are designed to imitate other products; to prevent a consumer from buying one product under the belief that it is another.^[4] For example, the shape, color, and arrangement of the materials of a children’s line of clothing can be protectable trade dress (though, the design of the dress itself is not protected),^[5] as can the design of a magazine cover,^[6] the appearance and décor of a chain of Mexican-style restaurants,^[7] and a method of displaying wine bottles in a wine shop.^[8]

Statutory Source

Under section 43(a) of the Lanham Act a product's trade dress can be protected without formal registration with the PTO.^[9] In relevant part, section 43(a) states the following:

“Any person who . . . in connection with any goods or services . . . uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which . . . [i]s likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive . . . as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or . . . in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is likely to be damaged by such an act.”^[10]

This statute allows the owner of a particular trade dress to sue an infringer (a person/entity who illegally copies that trade dress) for violating section 43(a) without registering that trade dress with any formal agency or system (unlike the registration and application requirements for enforcing other forms of intellectual property, such as patents). It is commonly seen as providing “federal common law” protection for trade dress (and trademarks).^[11]

Formal Registration

Trade dress may be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in either the Principal Register or the Supplemental Register.^[12] Although registration is not required for legal protection, registration offers several advantages. In the Principal Register, a registrant gains nationwide constructive use and constructive notice, which prevent others from using or registering that registrant’s trade dress (without contesting the registration).^[13] Further, a registrant in the Principal Register gains incontestable status after five years, which eliminates many of the ways for another party to challenge the registration.^[14] Registration under the Supplemental Register allows the registrant to protect its trade dress in foreign countries, although the protections are much more limited than protections under the Principle Register in the U.S.^[15]

Legal Requirements

Functionality

To gain registration in the Principal Register or common law protection under the Lanham Act, a trade dress must not be “functional.” That is, the configuration of shapes, designs, colors, or materials that make up the trade dress in question must not serve a utility or function outside of creating recognition in the consumer’s mind.^[16] For example, even though consumers associated a distinct spring design for wind resistant road signs with a particular company, the spring design was not protectable for trade dress purposes because the springs served the function of withstanding heavy wind conditions.^[17]

What is considered “functional” depends upon the specific product or thing sought to be protected.^[18] For example, the color red in a line of clothing may not be functional (and thus part of protectable trade dress) whereas the same color on a stop sign would be functional because the color red serves the function of putting drivers on alert (and thus would not be part of a protectable trade dress).

Distinctiveness

To gain registration in the Principal Register or common law protection under the Lanham Act, a trade dress must be “distinctive.” This means that consumers perceive a particular trade dress as identifying a source of a product.^[19] For example, when a consumer walks through an electronics store and sees an Apple iPod and immediately recognizes it in favor of other MP3 players, it could be said that the iPod has achieved a "trade dress."

Trade dress may be either “inherently distinctive” or acquire distinctiveness through “secondary meaning.”^[20] Inherent distinctiveness means that the trade dress is so arbitrary or fanciful in relation to the product or entity it represents, that this arbitrariness itself serves to distinguish the product from others.^[21] Distinctiveness through secondary meaning means that although a trade dress is not distinctive on its face, the use of the trade dress in the market (the “good will” of the trade dress) has created an association between that trade dress and a source in the mind of the consumer.

Although the law is evolving, as it stands now, product packaging (including packaging in very general terms, such as a building’s décor) may be inherently distinctive.^[22] However, product design, that is the design or shape of the product itself, may not be inherently distinctive, and must acquire secondary meaning to be protected.^[23]

Protection for Electronic Interfaces and Websites

Although the exact parameters of protection are still uncertain, courts are beginning to allow trade dress protection for the overall “look and feel” of a website. In Blue Nile, Inc. v. Ice.com, Inc., the plaintiff sued the defendant for copying the overall “look and feel” of plaintiff’s retail jewelry websites, including the design of plaintiff’s search pages.^[24] Although the court ordered more factual development before it could rule definitively on the issue, the court did hold that it was possible for the look and feel of the websites to have trade dress protection if the plaintiff’s copyright claims did not already cover those parts. In SG Serices, Inc. v. God’s Girls, Inc., the court denied trade dress protection for the plaintiff’s website because the plaintiff did not demonstrate that the website was non-functional or distinctive.^[25] This case shows the court’s willingness to consider trade dress protection for a website, even though the court did not find protection in this case. It is notable, however, that the SG Services court did not look at the overall “look and feel” of the website, but rather, at specific characteristics (such as color) of the website that the plaintiff claimed were infringed.

Although the future of trade dress protection for websites is still very unclear, much thought has been given to this area and it will likely continue to be actively developing area for courts and litigants.^[26]

India

In view of the recent developments in trading and commercial practices and to give effect to important judicial pronouncements, a need for simplification and harmonization of trademark management systems was felt. The new Trade Marks Act, 1999, which came into force in September 2003 is the result of this realization.

The new legal definition of a trade mark under the Act consists of the shape of goods, packaging or combination of colors or any combination thereof. A package is now protected under the Act, which includes any case, box container, receptacle, vessel, casket, bottle, wrapper, label, band, ticket, reel, frame, capsule, cap, lid, stopper, and cork. Thus, the new definition of trademark in India broadly encompasses almost all the elements of trade dress under the US law.

Under the Indian trademark law, any distinctive and identifying mark, which is capable of distinguishing the goods and services of one owner from that of another, may be utilized as Trademark and such marks are afforded protection under the law. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 is a reproduction of the UK’s Trade Marks Act 1994 as India follow the English Trade Mark laws from the beginning. Unlike the United States Lanham Act, 1946 the English Trade Marks Act, 1994 and the Indian Act, 1999 do not have provisions like section 43(a) (of Lanham Act) to protect un-registered trade dress or allow registration of trade dress which qualifies the tests of distinctiveness and source identifier.

United Kingdom

Trade dress can be protected as getup under the law of passing off in the UK. Passing off is a common law remedy for protecting an unregistered trademark. Getup, packaging, business strategy, marketing techniques, advertisement themes etc. can also be protected under passing off.

See also

• Trademark infringement

References