Opinion ID: 691965
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Attention Expected of Consumers (Scott Factor 3)

Text: 58 The third Scott factor is the price of the goods and other factors indicative of the care and attention expected of consumers when making a purchase. The greater the care and attention, the less the likelihood of confusion. Fisons Horticulture, Inc., 30 F.3d at 476 n. 12. We believe that this factor takes on enhanced importance when a claim is made for infringement of trade dress in a product configuration, both as a result of the intersection of the patent laws with the Lanham Act, and as a function of the difference between a trademark and a product configuration. 59 The penumbra of the federal patent laws restricts the degree to which courts may grant legal recognition of consumer reliance on product configurations as source indicators, for their limited scope of protection impliedly imposes restraint on the workings of Section 43(a). Accordingly, we must bear in mind the Supreme Court's counsel that mere inability of the public to tell two identical articles apart is not enough to support an injunction against copying ... that which the federal patent laws permit to be copied. Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 225, 232, 84 S.Ct. 784, 789, 11 L.Ed.2d 661 (1964). 12 [T]he federal policy, found in Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution and in the implementing federal statutes, of allowing free access to copy whatever the federal patent and copyright laws leave in the public domain, Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., 376 U.S. 234, 237, 84 S.Ct. 779, 782, 11 L.Ed.2d 669 (1964), is an ever-present consideration, MCKENNEY & LONG, FEDERAL UNFAIR COMPETITION Sec. 5.03, at 5-25. 60 Furthermore, one expects a consumer exercising ordinary care to ascertain the source of a product to rely much more on packaging, trademarks, and advertising, which if not deceptive tend to reveal the product's source unambiguously, than on the product configuration, which usually does not contain an explicit statement of the producer's identity. While it might be shown that consumers in fact rely on a particular product's configuration to identify its source, such deviation from the normal pattern (i.e., from reliance on trademarks, packaging, and advertising) would be rare. Because clear labeling thus should generally be legally and factually sufficient to remedy confusion where unpatented product configurations are at issue, clarity of labeling (and marketing) must be taken into account in considering whether there is a likelihood that consumers exercising ordinary care will be confused as to the sources of substantially identical products. 61 Much as courts are required to police the boundaries of similarity within which a jury may be permitted to find a likelihood of confusion under the Lanham Act, Country Floors, Inc., 930 F.2d at 1063, courts must also establish the perimeters of ordinary care that constrain likelihood of confusion. The following non-exhaustive considerations should guide a court's determination of the standard of ordinary care for a particular product. Inexpensive goods require consumers to exercise less care in their selection than expensive ones. The more important the use of a product, the more care that must be exercised in its selection. In addition, the degree of caution used ... depends on the relevant buying class. That is, some buyer classes, for example, professional buyers ... will be held to a higher standard of care than others. Where the buyer class consists of both professional buyers and consumers,.... the standard of care to be exercised by the reasonably prudent purchaser will be equal to that of the least sophisticated consumer in the class. Ford Motor Co., 930 F.2d at 293. 62