Opinion ID: 776502
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Relatedness or Proximity of the Parties' Goods and Services

Text: 54 We examine the relatedness of the parties' goods because the more closely related the goods are, the more likely consumers will be confused by similar marks. The district court found as a matter of law that the parties' goods are related and weighed this factor in favor of a finding of likelihood of confusion. [B]oth parties, noted the district court, print publications that feature small businesses. We agree that, for this reason, the parties goods are somewhat related. Nonetheless a reasonable juror would have to find that the relatedness factor does not weigh heavily in favor of a finding of likely confusion. 55 Related goods are those products which would be reasonably thought by the buying public to come from the same source if sold under the same mark. Sleekcraft, 599 F.2d at 348 n. 10 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In practice, this definition does not necessarily require a close proximity before goods will be found related. For instance, we recently stated that where both companies offer products and services relating to the entertainment industry generally ... [the companies] are not properly characterized as non-competitors. Brookfield, 174 F.3d at 1056. 56 In this case, however, the fact that both parties' goods relate generally to entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship — in other words, that both parties' products relate to the descriptive word EMI choose for its trademark — can carry relatively little weight in determining the likelihood of confusion. This is so because any individual or company using the word entrepreneur as part of the name of its product or service to indicate exactly what the word means — small, independent business owners — is likely to do so because that product or service has something to do with the world of entrepreneurs. To weigh this relationship heavily in favor of a likelihood of confusion in any case brought by EMI would provide an advantage to EMI because EMI's mark is weak — descriptive of both its subject matter and intended audience — and would thereby counsel avoidance of such descriptive words in marks. 57 We therefore apply a sliding scale approach as to the weight that relatedness will carry dependent upon the strength of the trademark holder's mark. This approach takes into account the fact that consumers may well recognize that Smith uses terms that include the word entrepreneur for what the word means, not because of an association with Entrepreneur magazine. A sliding scale is therefore the logical way to connect relatedness of products with likelihood of confusion. Such a scale also serves an important balancing function. 58 While the public and the trademark owner have an interest in preventing consumer confusion, there is also a broad societal interest in preserving common, useful words for the public domain. We do not want to prevent the commercial use of descriptive words to name products, as straightforward names are often the most useful identifiers. An absolute measure of relatedness, in contrast, would discourage use of descriptive words in marks. 59 In addition to their connection to small businesses, Smith and EMI's companies are both related by their production of print publications. This similarity does not however render the businesses so closely related as to suggest strongly a likelihood of confusion. 60 EMI's publication, Entrepreneur magazine, is a prototypical magazine. It prints articles written by independent writers and selected by EMI's staff in the exercise of journalistic judgment. Entrepreneur's revenue is generated through sales of the magazine itself and sales of advertisements for placement within the magazine. Smith's publication, Entrepreneur Illustrated, is distributed free of charge and earns revenue solely by contracting with small business clients to have promotional, copyright-free articles, either supplied or approved by the client, included in the publication. 61 In sum, although we agree that the parties' goods are related, this factor does not weigh heavily in favor of likely confusion as a matter of law. 62