Opinion ID: 774295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Analysis of the FTDA's preliminary factors.

Text: 23 In our most recent FTDA decision, Kellogg Co. v. Exxon Corp., 209 F.3d 562 (6th Cir. 2000), decided some two months after entry of the district court's opinion in this case, we adopted the Second Circuit's standards for determining dilution set out in Nabisco, 191 F.3d at 215. The Nabisco test requires that to establish a dilution claim, (1) the senior mark must be famous; (2) it must be distinctive; (3) the junior use must be a commercial use in commerce; (4) it must begin after the senior mark has become famous; and (5) it must cause dilution of the distinctive quality of the senior mark. Kellogg, 209 F.3d at 577 (quoting Nabisco, 191 F.3d at 215). Without the benefit of our opinion, the district court instead applied a four-factor test for dilution established by the Ninth Circuit in Panavision, 141 F3d at 1324. The Panavision test requires a plaintiff to prove that 1) the mark is famous; (2)the defendant is making a commercial use of the mark in commerce; (3) the defendant's use began after the mark became famous; and (4) the defendant's use of the mark dilutes the quality of the mark by diminishing the capacity of the mark to identify and distinguish goods and services. Id. The two tests are substantially similar, with the only material difference being that the Kellogg / Nabisco test requires a plaintiff to prove that its mark is not only famous, but also distinctive. 24 Although in Kellogg we did not conduct a full dilution analysis, the Second Circuit provided an extended discussion of distinctiveness in the Nabisco decision, as follows: 25 Distinctiveness in a mark is a characteristic quite different from fame. Distinctiveness is a crucial trademark concept, which places marks on a ladder reflecting their inherent strength or weakness. The degree of distinctiveness of a mark governs in part the breadth of the protection it can command. At the low end are generic words - words that name the species or object to which the mark applies. These are totally without distinctiveness and are ineligible for protection as marks because to give them protection would be to deprive competitors of the right to refer to their products by name. . . . Thus, no one can claim the exclusive right to use the mark CAR for a car. One rung up the ladder are descriptivemarks - those that describe the product or its attributes or claims. These also have little distinctiveness and accordingly are ineligible for protection unless they have acquired secondary meaning - that is, unless the consuming public has come to associate the mark with the products or services of its user . . . . [T]he next higher rung belongs to suggestive marks; these fall in an in-between category.... They do not name or describe the product for which they are used, but they suggest the qualities or claims of that product. They are more distinctive than descriptive marks, and thus are accorded trademark rights without need to demonstrate that consumers have come to associate them with the user of the mark . . . . Nonetheless, because they seek to suggest qualities of the product, they possess a low level of distinctiveness. The are given less protection than is reserved for more distinctive marks - those that are arbitrary or fanciful. . . . A mark is arbitrary or fanciful if there is no logical relationship whatsoever between the mark and the product on which it is used. However, even within the category of arbitrary or fanciful marks, there is still a substantial range of distinctiveness. Some marks may qualify as arbitrary because they have no logical relationship to the product, but nonetheless have a low level of distinctiveness because they are common. The most distinctive are marks that are entirely the product of the imagination and evoke no association with human experience that relate intrinsically to the product . . . . The strongest protection of the trademark laws is reserved for these most highly distinctive marks. 26 Nabisco, 191 F.3d at 215-16 (citations omitted). 27 The Second Circuit went on to note that it took the requirement that a mark be distinctive from the text of the FTDA, which requires that the junior mark's use must cause dilution of the distinctive quality of the [plaintiff's] mark and lists as a factor to be considered whether the mark is distinctive and famous. Id. at 216. Finally, the Second Circuit concluded that: 28 The requirement of distinctiveness is furthermore an important limitation. A mark that, notwithstanding its fame, has no distinctiveness is lacking the very attribute that the antidilution statute seeks to protect. The antidilution statute seeks to guarantee exclusivity not only in cases where confusion would occur but throughout the realms of commerce. Many famous marks are of the common or quality-claiming or prominence-claiming type - such as American, National, Federal, Federated, First, United, Acme, Merit or Ace. It seems most unlikely that the statute contemplates allowing the holders of such common, albeit famous, marks to exclude all new entrants. That is why the statute grants that privilege only to holders of distinctive marks. 29 Id. 30 Because it applied the Panavision test instead of the test derived from Nabisco, the district court did not explicitly consider the distinctiveness of the Victoria's Secret mark as a factor of the plaintiffs' prima facie case, and the Moseleys now contend (albeit in a different context) that the mark is not distinctive. 2 They argue that because there are hundreds of lingerie concerns that use the word secret as part of their mark, it cannot be considered an arbitrary or fanciful term deserving a high level of protection. In this argument, however, the defendants err by failing to consider the Victoria's Secret mark as a whole. For in the context of considering two marks' similarity, we have endorsed the 'anti-dissection rule,' which serves to remind courts not to focus only on the prominent features of the mark, or only on those features that are prominent for purposes of the litigation, but on the mark in its totality. Jet, Inc. v. Sewage Aeration Systems, 165 F.3d 419, 423 (6th Cir. 1999). Obviously, the anti-dissection rule is equally applicable in considering a mark's distinctiveness. 31 In this case, for example, although the word secret may provoke some intrinsic association with prurient interests, it is not automatically linked in the ordinary human experience with lingerie. Secret is not particularly descriptive of bras and hosiery. Nor is there anything about the combination of the possessive Victoria's and secret that automatically conjures thoughts of women's underwear - except, of course, in the context of plaintiff's line of products. Hence, we conclude that the Victoria's Secret mark ranks with those that are arbitrary and fanciful and is therefore deserving of a high level of trademark protection. Although the district court applied a slightly different test from the one now established in this circuit, the court would undoubtedly have reached the same result under the Nabisco test. Certainly, we cannot say that the court erred in finding that the preliminary factors of a dilution claim had been met by Victoria's Secret. 32