The maker of Jack Daniel’s whiskey told the Supreme Court on March 22 that a dog toy maker whose chew toy parodies a bottle of the Tennessee distiller’s product violated its trademark.
The case deals with the interplay of the First Amendment and trademark protection laws and the extent to which one company may parody another’s product with its own product. The legal concern is whether the Constitution’s free speech protections insulate the parody product from trademark-infringement claims by the maker of the product that is being satirized.
Corporate America is concerned about trademark protection. Several companies, including Campbell’s Soup Company and clothes makers Patagonia Inc. and Levi Strauss and Co. filed briefs supporting Jack Daniel’s. On the other side, free speech advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed briefs stressing the importance of allowing people to make fun of popular brands….