Opinion ID: 2801691
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Advertising of Utilitarian Advantages

Text: “If a seller advertises the utilitarian advantages of a particular feature, this constitutes strong evidence of functionality.” Disc Golf, 158 F.3d at 1009. An “inference” of a product feature’s utility in the plaintiff’s advertisement is enough to weigh in favor of functionality of a trade dress encompassing that feature. Id. Apple argues that its advertising was “[f]ar from touting any utilitarian advantage of the iPhone design . . . .” Appellee’s Br. 60. Apple relies on its executive’s testimony that an iPhone advertisement, portraying “the distinctive design very clearly,” was based on Apple’s “product as hero” approach. Id. (quoting J.A. 40641-42; 40644:22). The “product as hero” approach refers to Apple’s stylistic choice of making “the product the biggest, clearest, most obvious thing in [its] advertisements, often at the expense of anything else around it, to remove all the other eleAPPLE INC. v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. 13 ments of communication so [the viewer] see[s] the product most predominantly in the marketing.” J.A. 40641-42. Apple’s arguments focusing on its stylistic choice, however, fail to address the substance of its advertisements. The substance of the iPhone advertisement relied upon by Apple gave viewers “the ability to see a bit about how it might work,” for example, “how flicking and scrolling and tapping and all these multitouch ideas simply [sic].” J.A. 40644:23-40645:2. Another advertisement cited by Apple similarly displayed the message, “[t]ouching is believing,” under a picture showing a user’s hand interacting with the graphical user interface of an iPhone. J.A. 24896. Apple fails to show that, on the substance, these demonstrations of the user interface on iPhone’s touch screen involved the elements claimed in Apple’s unregistered trade dress and why they were not touting the utilitarian advantage of the unregistered trade dress.