There is political signage in my area that seems to be purposely similar to a certain brand of breakfast cereal. My gf is in advertising and she thinks the laws against theft of intellectual property might apply. I wonder how anyone would judge.
Here is the sign:
Here is what it appears to copy:
Thanks for your thoughts. Note: we are not involved in this race, just intellectually curious. (To the point that I went out and bought a box of cereal just for the photo-op.)
I don’t think the similarities are enough to warrant IP protection. It is just a similar name with black lettering on a yellow background. If he then offered to lower the government spending 4% in 6 weeks, that might be a different matter.
It’s a trademark issue. Since the politician probably won’t be confused with a breakfast cereal (cereals, for instance, are not known to lie), it’s unlikely that General Mills would bother.
If it’s an intellectual properties issue at all, it’s a trademark issue.
The cereal brand in question would be unlikely to win an infringement case, seeing as there is little-to-no chance of consumer confusion between a well-known breakfast treat and a candidate for political office.
There is a mild chance the cereal brand might be successful with a dilution claim* (i.e., a claim that the usage in the photos in the OP constituted a diminuation in the value of their trademark), but it’s quite an iffy claim, and almost certainly not worth pursuing. It is also complicated by the fact that the theoretically infringing use is on political signage. Therefore, the possibly diluting usage is not being used commercially for profit. It’s very, very difficult to make a trademark case stick in cases where the offending party isn’t engaging in their behavior as part of a commercial enterprise. In fact, I’m not aware of any case offhand where a holder of a trademark successfully gained relief against someone using their trademark in a way they did not authorize outside the commercial sphere, where no commercial aspect entered into the fact pattern. (Even artists using trademarks as part of their art can be legitimately inferred to have a commercial interest - they are generally intending to sell their work, and thereby benefit commercially from the use of the trademark of another party.)
That’s the Code section, all righty. Glad I could help. I’d skip the latter portion of that section though, as it deals mostly with domain names and cyberpiracy issues. Not particularly germane.
I know a couple of decent recipes for the cereal, if you’re disinclined to eat it in the traditional fashion
hehe. I actually recommend Cheerios for hamsters, Guinea pigs, and bunnies who all generally need more fiber than their typical pelleted diets contain.
There’s also the consideration that it’s probably unlikely that someone viewing the political sign is going to think that the candidate is claiming some sort of association with or sponsorship by General Mills. The political sign is pretty clearly a political sign and the only things it has in common with the Cheerios box is the colour yellow and an apparently similar typeface. I certainly wouldn’t have made the connection had the OP not pointed it out.
Really? There’s no attempt to parody the breakfast cereal. If, say, someone found a dead rat in a box of Cheerios, and someone else made signs using the Cheerios style that said “Rattios”, then that would be an actual parody of Cheerios. But, as the guys at Penny Arcade learned when they tried to parody American McGee’s Alice with the Strawberry Shortcake character, an IP owner doesn’t much care for you if you use their IP in a parody of an entirely unrelated issue.
The case I’m thinking of never went to court, so I’d be curious to see how any of the board lawyers think it might have gone. It seems to me that they have a good case. I can’t just use an image of Mickey Mouse in a parody of, say, the X-Men, and claim that it’s protected because it’s a parody.
I’d just like to say that with such an unwieldy name, she needs a hook to generate name recognition. In this case, the solution seems rather obvious, but it’s still ingenius.
After some further discussion on this topic, a foaf has contacted someone he knows at General Mills to see what their official policy on this situation is.
I’d guess “her”, based on this quote from the page you linked:
About thirty years ago, an advertising campaign for these pipes featured the question “What’s a Grabow?” Raymond Grabow, who was running for some political office in the Greater Cleveland area, unveiled a TV spot which featured the same question (and was shot in a similar manner, using a voice-over artist who sounded much like the announcer on the pipe ad). I don’t remember if he won that particular election, but he eventually became mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio.
See also The Cat NOT in the Hat, which used Dr. Seuss characters to parody the O.J. Simpson trial. The parody has to be related to the thing at hand in order to be considered fair use.
As for this, IANAL, but I’d say it’s fair use. It’s just playing on the fact that “Cherrio” looks simliar to “Cheerios.” It would not cause “confusion in the marketplace” (Tetley v. Topps Chewing Gum, over whether or not parodies cause “confusion in the marketplace”, and also some other parody cases which had a different outcome- “Enjoy Cocaine,” etc.), as no one is going to believe the political official can be purchased and eaten.
