Tabberone is pronounced tab ber won
not tay ber own

Tabbers Temptations     www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/ Home | Site Index | Disclaimer | Email Me!

Tabberone Logo
The latest Hartsel weather.

  "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Edmund Burke


United Media
Peanuts

Hall Of Shame Member
Added May 23, 2003

Last Updated February 7, 2010

We have located two federal courts cases concerning the use of fabric to make items to sell:

In Precious Moments vs La Infantil, 1997, the federal court invoked the first sale doctrine in denying Precious Moments attempts to block the use of its licensed fabrics to make bedding for sale. The 1st Circuit Court said making a fabric item from fabric lacked any originality so it was not copyright infringement. Since then, M&M/Mars, Disney Enterprises, Major League Baseball, United Media (Peanuts fabric), Sanrio (Hello Kitty fabrics), and Debbie Mumm, have been sued when these companies tried to block the eBay sales of items hand-crafted from their licensed fabrics. Every one of them settled rather than risk losing the issue in court.


In Scarves By Vera, Inc. v. American Handbags, Inc, 188 F. Supp. 255 - US: Dist. Court, SD New York 1960, American Handbags was using towels manufactured by Vera to make handbags for sale. On some of these handbags made with plaintiff's towels there could be seen, at the bottom, the name Vera coupled with the figure of a Scarab or Ladybug, all three of which were registered trademarks of Vera. The judge rejected Vera's copyright claims.


It should be noted that in both cases the judges required the defendants to provide disclaimers attached to the items because the items were being sold in stores. The disclaimers were to plainly disavow any relationship between the manufacturer of the item and the trademark owner. This was done so "an ordinary, intelligent purchaser" would not be misled that there was any connection. When selling on-line, a prominent, highly visible and well-placed disclaimer, such as our recommended Tabberone Disclaimer, would likely serve the same purpose and legal need as the disclaimers required by the courts. Precious Moments disclaimer court quotation and Scarves By Vera disclaimer court quotation.

In November, 2003, United Media took exception to Tabberone making items from Peanuts fabric and then selling the items on eBay.

On November 14, 2003, upon orders from United Media, eBay terminated six auctions by Tabberone.

You can view two of these auctions, 3252338822 Snoopy Soccer Fabric Iridescent Fleece Quillow and 3252338454 Adorable Baby Snoopy Fabric Quillow.

No one to take this sort of thing lightly, Tabberone immediately emailed United Media demanding a reason as to why the auctions were removed. United Media replied with the usual line of tripe about derivatives, copyright and trademark infringement, etc. They refused to restore the auctions.

On November 18, 2003, Tabberone filed a counter notice with eBay concerning the auctions. As is her custom, she filed the counter notice while on the way to the Federal Courthouse in Denver, Colorado, to file a federal lawsuit against Untied Media, Civil Action No. 03-D-2298 (PAC).

On February 3, 2004, United Media agreed to a settlement in which United Media agreed to rescind the auction takedowns and not to interfere in future auctions by Tabberone involving the use of Peanuts fabric. 2½ months from lawsuit to settlement by yet another self-righteous legal department with no real concept of fair use and the first sale doctrine. Another billion-dollar company that didn't want to try and litigate the issues because they knew they would lose. Another VeRO bully who attacked non-infringing sellers thinking no one would ever stand up to them.

 

 

Rebuttals

In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site.

If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We reserve the right to alter the rebuttal to make it more readable. However, we will not alter the content (unless there is offensive material to be removed). We also reserve the right to comment on any rebuttal received. Emails protesting the content of this web site may be treated as rebuttals by us at our discretion.

General
Articles | Cease and Desist Letters | Federal Court Cases | FAQs & Whines | Glossary | Hall Of Shame | Contributions

Corporate Lawyers
Cartoons | Code Of Ethics | Courtroom Remarks | Definition Of A Lie | Jokes | Lawyers | Lying | Who Have Lied

eBay - Land The Game

Definitions

Trademark Definitions
Blurring   |   Confusion   |   Damages   |   Dilution   |   History   |   Initial Interest Confusion   |   Likelihood Of Confusion   |   Material Difference Standard
Parallel Imports   |   Post-sale Confusion   |   Puffery   |   Secondary Meaning   |   Subsequent Confusion   |   Trademark Abuse
Unauthorized Use   |   Unfair Competition   |   What is a Trademark?
Copyright Definitions
Angel Policies   |   Contributory Infringement   |   Copyrightability   |   Copyright Extortion   |   Copyright Misuse Doctrine
; Derivative   |   The Digital Millennium Copyright Act   |   EULA   |   Fair Use   |   First Sale Doctrine   |   Product Description   |   Registration
Registration Denied   |   What is a Copyright?   |   What is not Copyrightable?
Other Issues
Embroidery Designs   |   FAQs & Whines   |   Image and Text Theft   |   Licensed Fabric   |   Licensing & Licenses   |   Patterns
Patterns Index   |   Profit   |   Quilting   |   Selvage   |   Stanford School of Law Case Outline
Tabberone Disclaimer   |   Trademark Extortion   |   Urban Myths   |   What To Do If You Are Veroed

Federal Court Cases
Alphabetically | by Federal Circuit | by Subject | by Court Quotations

Federal Statutes
Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. 5 | Digital Millenium Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. 12 | Lanham Act 15 U.S.C. 22
<

VeRO (Verified Right's Owner Program)
VeRO Commandments | VeRO-Verified Rights Owners Program | Counter Notice Letter
Counter Notice (pre-2003) | Counter Notice present | On-Line Survey from 2004 | Articles about VeRO | What To Do If You Are Veroed

Original material by Karen Dudnikov & Michael Meadors is © 1999-2017

 

 

iweb counter