Professor Christine Haight Farley Quoted in Bloomberg Law Story on Trademark Dispute Over DeSantis Hat
PIJIP Faculty Director Christine Haight Farley was recently quoted in a about聽Ron DeSantis hats that use聽the trademarked聽Disney script. Prof. Farley and other legal experts in the piece debate whether the Walt Disney Co. could have a successful trademark claim, or whether First Amendment protections of political speech would protect this use of the script.
Bloomberg Law聽quotes Prof. Farley describing the use of the hats as within the 鈥渮one of political speech.鈥聽She says: 鈥淭his is an interesting theoretical question: 鈥榳hat would trademark law say in a dispute like this?鈥 Disney would be wise to not step in it... There is a case to be made there is a message here: 鈥楯oin me, we鈥檙e going after Disney, I鈥檓 trying to poke them in every way.鈥欌澛
Disney's rights in the situation could be affected by how the Supreme Court rules in a Jack Daniel鈥檚 Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC. In this case, the Court will decide whether a parody use of another鈥檚 trademark as one鈥檚 own on a commercial product is subject to the Lanham Act鈥檚 traditional likelihood-of-confusion analysis, or instead receives heightened First Amendment protection from trademark-infringement claims.聽Professor Farley and University of San Diego Prof. Lisa Ramsey address this issue in a forthcoming paper,聽.聽As noted by Bloomberg Law, Farley and Ramesy propose "uniform, holistic fair use trademark test that incorporates a standard based on how a reasonable person would react."