Michelle Wu: “I rise once again to oppose the Trademark Dilution Revision Act. Trademark law was originally about consumer protection…”

“I rise once again to oppose the Trademark Dilution Revision Act. Trademark law was originally about consumer protection, ensuring consumers were not confused or harmed by the misuse of a famous trademark. However, with the passage of the Federal Trademark Dilution Act in 1995, the issue of trademark dilution became more an issue of property protection. The purpose of that law was to enable businesses to protect the investment that companies have made in branding their products. Consumer confusion was no longer required to establish 'dilution.' Not surprisingly, private lawsuits in this area jumped from 2,405 in 1990 to 4,187 in 2000. For example, Starbucks went after a local coffee shop in my district that was named after its owner, Samantha Buck Lundberg. The coffee shop bore the nickname given to her by her family and friends--Sambuck. Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus sued the State of Utah over Utah's advertising slogan that it had 'The Greatest Snow on Earth.' To the circus this slogan was an obvious play on the long time identification of the circus as 'The Greatest Show on Earth.' Microsoft sued to prevent use of the term 'Lindows' for the Linux operating system software and website produced by Lindows, Inc., arguing that it was clearly an attempt to play on the Windows designation of its own operating system. Lindows eventually changed the name of the product and website to 'Linspire' after losing court cases.”