Opinion ID: 178211
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Intentional Copying

Text: The district court found Tenneco’s evidence that Defendants copied Tenneco’s struts to be irrelevant because this is not a trade dress case. Tenneco argues that the district court erred, and further argues that its evidence of intentional copying raises a genuine issue of material fact. Besides the copying itself, Tenneco points out that Defendants used the product numbers on their external packaging, labels, and packing slips. Tenneco characterizes this use as an “admission” of secondary meaning that consumers, or at least distributors, associate the numbers with Tenneco. Defendants, apparently realizing the district court’s error, attempt to recast the district court’s language by arguing that the district court was distinguishing this case from the trade dress cases on the basis of what is being protected. Defendants also point out that the strut was not protected, that Tenneco themselves copied it from the original part, and that there is no evidence Defendants 14 Nos. 08-2276/09-1920, Tenneco v. Kingdom Auto Parts instructed their Chinese contractor to copy the product number as well. As to the labels, Defendants argue that Tenneco’s argument for an “admission” is overdrawn. Use of the product numbers as a cross-reference is common practice in the industry; furthermore, Tenneco offers nothing but its own gloss on the numbers to show that they point out the source rather than the product. Tenneco is correct that the district court erred when it stated, apparently categorically, that because this was not a trade dress case the evidence of intentional copying was irrelevant. See, e.g., Two Pesos, 505 U.S. at 773 (“[T]he protection of trademarks and trade dress under § 43(a) [of the Lanham Act] serves the same statutory purpose of preventing deception and unfair competition. There is no persuasive reason to apply different analysis to the two.”); Herman Miller, 270 F.3d at 308 n.2 (“Trade dress issues follow the same rules and laws as trademark issues.”). The district court should not have found Tenneco’s evidence of intentional copying to be irrelevant because this is a trade mark case. Tenneco’s application of the trade dress cases to the present case, however, is flawed. “Trade dress refers to the image and overall appearance of a product.” Herman Miller, 270 F.3d at 308 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The trade dress cases, including Esercizio, Two Pesos, and Herman Miller, all focus on the intentional copying of the relevant trade dress at issue, whether the Ferrari exterior, the restaurant appearance and atmosphere, or the lounge chair and ottoman. See Esercizio, 944 F.2d at 1239; Two Pesos, 505 U.S. at 765 n.1; Herman Miller, 270 F.3d at 314. The Supreme Court in Two Pesos and this Court in Herman Miller and Esercizio considered evidence of intent to specifically copy those protectable trade dress designs. These were broad inquiries because the idea of trade dress is broad and encompasses the whole scope of the product. 15 Nos. 08-2276/09-1920, Tenneco v. Kingdom Auto Parts Here, however, the product itself is not protected. Tenneco seeks protection only for the product number. Defendants were perfectly within their rights to send the strut to China to be copied, despite Tenneco’s repeated attempts to paint that action as a black mark. As the district court noted, the law favors the copying of nonprotected items. The testimony Tenneco quotes from Defendants’ President Gary Calagoure simply does not provide evidence of an intent to copy the product numbers. Calagoure admits that they sent the product to China to be copied, and that the numbers were stamped on the struts. He further characterizes this as a mistake that has been corrected. This is not a trade dress case, where the Court is necessarily engaged in a broad inquiry. Here, we are looking for evidence of intent to copy a specific mark, and that evidence is absent. Once the product number was already on the strut, it made perfect sense for Defendants to use it on packaging and labels, which they did until switching, as a result of this litigation, to new product numbers.3 Therefore, although the district court’s given reason for deeming the evidence irrelevant was incorrect, we find that Tenneco has not produced any evidence of intentional copying. Because the three distributor declarations should have been considered below, we must briefly detail and weigh the evidence for all the factors.