TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Paul Burch on Jun 8, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision authored by Justice Elena Kagan today ruled in favor of Jack Daniel's in a trademark dispute with a dog accessory company that sold a parody chew toy resembling the distiller's widely recognized black-label whiskey bottle, reported Reuters. The ruling threw out a lower court's opinion that the pun-laden "Bad Spaniels" vinyl chew toy sold by VIP Products LLC is an "expressive work" protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Kagan wrote that the 9th Circuit erred in applying the Rogers trademark test allowing for artistic relevance, concluding that "it is not appropriate when the accused infringer has used a trademark to designate the source of its own goods.” Read our previous coverage in TBA Today.