Supreme Court Decides Parody Marks Not Entitled to First Amendment Exemption in Jack Daniels Trademark Dispute
6/10/2023
In JACK DANIEL’S PROPERTIES, INC. v. VIP PRODUCTS LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Jack Daniels in deciding that ‘VIP Products’ use of a dog toy designed to look like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey along with humorous spoofs on Jack Daniel’s marks. On the toy, “Jack Daniels” became “Bad Spaniels”, and “Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” became “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet”. Jack Daniels contended that these uses, even though humorous, still confused consumers into thinking that they had licensed or otherwise provided permission to VIP to use their brands – when in fact they did not. VIP asserted that their parodic use of their message is exempt from trademark infringement under First Amendment protections for artistic expressions, developed by the courts in dictum in the so-called “Rogers Test”.
Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Jack Daniel’s Trademark Dispute
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