Tabberone is pronounced tab ber won not tay ber own

Tabbers Temptations     www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/ Home | Site Index | Disclaimer | Email Me! "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke

This information is taken directly from the court opinion. It is not taken out of context nor is it altered.

From Matell vs MCA Records, 296 F.3d 894 (9th Cir 2002) The First Amendment may offer little protection for a competitor who labels its commercial good with a confusingly similar mark, but "[t]rademark rights do not entitle the owner to quash an unauthorized use of the mark by another who is communicating ideas or expressing points of view." L.L. Bean, Inc. v. Drake Publishers, Inc, 811 F.2d 26, 29 (1st Cir.1987). Were we to ignore the expressive value that some marks assume, trademark rights would grow to encroach upon the zone protected by the First Amendment. . . . Simply put, the trademark owner does not have the right to control public discourse whenever the public imbues his mark with a meaning beyond its source-identifying function. See Anti-Monopoly, Inc. v. Gen. Mills Fun Group, 611 F.2d 296, 301 (9th Cir.1979) ("It is the source-denoting function which trademark laws protect, and nothing more.").