Court Opinion

ID: 9476797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:05:49.700446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:31.141043
License: Public Domain

SPRIZZO, District Judge
(concurring):
Since I am convinced that the District Court correctly applied the factors enumerated by previous decisions of this Court with respect to the issues of both secondary meaning and likelihood of confusion, I concur in the Court’s conclusion that the judgment should be affirmed. However, I do not share the view that a proper analysis of those factors can or should be properly characterized as a recital of “the right formulas” akin to Ali Baba’s magical incantation “Open Sesame,” nor do I believe that a proper resolution of future cases raising these issues will be aided or enhanced by encouraging district court judges to perceive their function in the mechanistic fashion which that language suggests. Cf. Lois Sportswear, U.S.A., Inc. v. Levi Strauss & Co., 799 F.2d 867, 872 (2d Cir.1986) (“ultimate conclusion as to whether likelihood of confusion exists is not to be determined in accordance with some rigid formula”).
I am also unpersuaded that two instances of confusion by publications of such stature as the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are necessarily an inadequate predicate for a finding of actual confusion. None of the cases cited by the Court involved instances of actual confusion of that type, and indeed one of them, see Grotrian, Helfferich, Schultz, Th. Steinweg Nachf v. Steinway & Sons, 523 F.2d 1331, 1340 (2d Cir.1975), relied on an instance of confusion on the part of a telephone directory, along with other evidence of confusion of consumers, as sufficient to support a finding of actual confusion. However, since, as the Court correctly observes, a finding of actual confusion is not essential to a finding of likelihood of confusion, I agree with the Court’s determination that the correctness or incorrectness of the District Court’s finding in that regard has no impact upon this appeal.