Quote:
Originally Posted by EliteWebmaster
It's true Playboy would probably try to go after anyone that it deems infringing on their trademarks but they lost a landmark case against Netscape below when they tried suing Netscape because of the use of "Playboy" and "Playmate" which Playboy claimed was infringing on their copyrights but as the courts concluded, both those words are part of the English dictionary and used before it was trademarked so Netscape won.
http://news.cnet.com/Playboy-loses-r..._3-228787.html
Playboy also lost a case against Tori Welles (a former playmate) when she used the terms "Playboy", "Playmate of the Year", and "Playmate" on her site's meta description. Again, the judgement was that she was allowed to use it.
http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl...2/02/17/074232
So as much as Playboy would like everyone to think they have exclusive rights to the words "Playboy" and "Playmate", they don't at least if someone doesn't use those words to closely resemble the actual Playboy brand. So if they don't have a foundation to stand on with infringement with their main two words, I don't think someone using a Bunny should be all too worried about Playboy winning an infringement against them. |
Totally missing the point. Those cases are not using a bunny for an adult property logo that is heavily trademarked, branded, and identifiable worldwide.
In the one case, Tori was allowed to use her former status as a Bunny which makes sense since she, as part of the magazine, is forever identifiable as part of the brand.
Also, the "landmark case" you claim was won in the first article - where do you get that? The ruling was merely a stage in the process and since then obviously branded keywords do have a lot more protection. While Playboy can't stop someone from selling "playmate" searches to the Igloo Playmate coolers, they can go after anyone using it to market adult properties.