Court Opinion

ID: 9489004
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:02:12.648996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:14.636927
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
Given the need for expedition, I will limit my concurrence to a brief summary of my views. I concur in all of Judge Oakes’ opinion except for the portion analogizing the case before us to cancellation or abandonment of a trademark.
Judge Oakes is, in my view, completely correct in noting that the Stickley originals and the Stickley reproductions are different products that sell at different prices to different consumers. The originals are antiques. They command higher prices than is charged for the reproductions and are sold largely to purists for whom only the original will do. Indeed, there is evidence in the record of a retailer altering identification of a reproduction in the hope of selling it as an original.
The originals are, of course, associated in consumers’ minds with Gustav Stickley, but that secondary meaning is of no legal usefulness to the plaintiff, Gustav’s successor-in-interest, because by definition production of the original items took place generations ago, whereas trade dress protection is sought for items coming out of the factory at this very moment.
Reproductions are generally not thought of by consumers as being produced by the original designer or artist, at least when the creation of the original and the reproduction are separated by sixty years, as in this case. Plaintiffs ease for secondary meaning is stronger than that of many who reproduce designs or artworks because it was the sole large-scale commercial reproducer of Stickley-designed furniture for two years. However, there is nothing in the record suggesting that the reproductions acquired secondary meaning in that short period of time.
Because I think that the lack of proof regarding secondary meaning associated with reproductions is dispositive of the present proceeding, I see no reason to address the application by analogy of trademark cancellation law or abandonment to the present facts.