Tabberone is pronounced tab ber won |
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This information is taken directly from the court opinion. It is not taken out of context nor is it altered. |
From Sally Beauty Company v. Beautyco, 304 F.3d 964 (10th Cir 2001)
A trade dress is inherently distinctive if its "intrinsic nature serves to identify a particular source." Two Pesos, 505 U.S. at 768. Such trade dresses "almost automatically tell a customer that they refer to a brand and immediately signal a brand or a product source." Samara Bros., 529 U.S. at 212-13 (citation, quotations, and alteration omitted). Like trademarks, the inherent distinctiveness of a trade dress is categorized along the generic-descriptive-suggestive-arbitrary-fanciful spectrum. See Two Pesos, 505 U.S. at 768. A trade dress which is not inherently distinctive, however, may acquire distinctiveness through secondary meaning. Id. at 769. In other words, over time customers may associate the primary significance of a dress feature with the source of the product rather than the product itself. See Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Prods. Co., 514 U.S. 159, 163 (1995). When a trade dress has become distinctive of a product's source, courts have permitted protection under § 43(a) of the Lanham Act. See I, 505 U.S. at 769. |