Transcription
Louis Vuitton guns? I don't think so. Let's talk about dilution.
I'm Angela Langlotz, trademark and copyright attorney. I go live here on weekdays to discuss trademarks and copyrights. If you have trademark and copyright law questions, drop them into the comments below; I'll answer them on a future live video.
So today, I want to talk about dilution. What's dilution? It's when an infringer uses a famous mark—and we'll talk about, you know, how we know it's famous—when an infringer uses a famous mark in a way that is not necessarily related to the goods and services that are normally produced by the uh, makers, the users of the famous mark. But it's using the famous mark in a way that would tend to blur or tarnish or diminish the distinctive quality of the famous mark.
I'm going to shrink myself into the corner and give you an example. Now, I saw this—oops, let me get this out of the way—I saw this yesterday on Facebook, and I thought, "Wow, that's bold and ballsy." Uh, somebody has taken the distinctive Louis Vuitton design—unless you've been living under a rock for the last 50 years, you probably recognize this as one of the most famous luxury leather goods brands in the entire world—anyway. Oh, and I might add, um, my use of this photograph is not considered copyright infringement because I'm using it for teaching purposes, so don't come at me with that. Anyway, they have taken the distinctive Louis Vuitton design and applied it to some kind of Cerakote. You can see Hornady ammunition—that's one of my former trademark clients—back here in the background. But anyway, love the firearms, uh, hate the trademark infringement. Let's talk about that.
So what this is called is this: this is called dilution. And dilution happens when um, a famous brand is used in a way that is not authorized by the owner of the famous brand. Now, the owner of the famous brand, Louis Vuitton, does not—they do not—absolutely manufacture firearms or any manufactured firearms accessories. But this person has chosen—I won't mention their name—this person has chosen to apply the Louis Vuitton trademark to the exterior of the firearms. I don't know whether that's Cerakote or some kind of permanent coating, or whether it's something that comes off—probably some kind of permanent coating because that barrel is going to get hot when you fire the weapon. Anyway, this is not allowed. Why? For a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that famous marks have protection against something called dilution. Dilution is when another party, an infringer, uses the famous trademark for things other than what the famous trademark is registered for. So famous trademarks are basically prevented from infringement on any brands because, oh, it's normal for a lot of famous brands to be widely used. For example, Louis Vuitton makes all kinds of home accessories, leather goods, um, you know, agendas, that sort of thing. So, of course, anything that is applied to um, any other goods with the Louis Vuitton mark on it might cause the consumer to go, "Huh, that's kind of weird," um, you know, and and maybe associate that with the Louis Vuitton brand. The other thing is that firearms are considered by many people to be sort of an unsavory business, and so there's this issue of tarnishment—use of the trademark in a way that some people might consider unsavory. So if I'm Louis Vuitton, I don't want my—my mark—maybe used on pornography or guns or or marijuana or anything else that might be considered sort of unsavory by a large swath of the population.
So if you're thinking about doing stuff like this, please don't. You're going to get yourself in trouble because uh, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy—Moët Hennessy—has pretty good trademark enforcement, and these people will probably be contacted and held to cease and desist and/or sued for money damages. So please don't do this. It's not a good idea to adopt any famous mark or anything that looks like a famous mark or play off of a famous mark or get anywhere near a famous mark. Just don't. It's cute, but just don't.
I'm Angela Langlotz. Ask me any trademark law questions by dropping them into the comments below. You can find me online at trademarkdoctor.net on YouTube and everywhere else; I'm omni-channel. Just search Trademark Doctor.