ABSTRACT
This book chapter argues that companies should not, as a matter of trademark policy, be able to challenge ‘fanmarks’ – marks that identify goods or services as referring to copyrighted works, rather than as originating from the sources of that work. In the fan context, for example, companies should not be able to challenge marks that describe their fan endeavors using words and symbols associated with the objects of their fandom. These would be, for example, the names of fan clubs and convention events dedicated to the copyrighted works, purveyors of products that express the love (or hate) for the copyrighted work, and the like. It argues that, like all descriptive marks, fanmarks are capable of achieving secondary meaning that identifies a particular fan group as the source of a good or service, and distinguish one fan source from another fan source or from the publisher, studio, etc. that produced the underlying work on which the fan good or service is based. The chapter argues that under trademark doctrine and according to an economic approach, this result is both correct and appropriate, even when the products or services produced under them compete with products or services protected by the copyright owner of the copyrighted work.
Rosenblatt, Elizabeth, Fanmarks (August 8, 2022).
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