Infringement Determination In The Case Of Trademark Ornamental Use

Ornamental use of trademark means merchandise adorned with the famoustrademarks and symbols of educational institutions, sports teams, musical groups,popular manufacturers, or the similar symbol. On such products, trademarks becomeimportant decoration, consumers purchase those products to express allegiance to theowners of the trademarks that adorn the goods, or the trademarks are aestheticallypleasing or fashionable. Ornamental use of trademark intimates that trademarks mayserve expressive functionality and aesthetic function rather than most commonfunction of identification.Ornamental trademark may have less distinctive, so trademark owner does nothave exclusive rights to the ornamental use of the trademark. In the cases involvingtrademark ornamental use, the courts should manipulate two key definitions: whetherthe ornamental use is a type of trademark use and likelihood of confusion.This paper consists of six parts. The chapter one indentifies the ornamental useof trademark, starting with distinctiveness of ornamental trademark, make theconclusion that trademark owner does not have exclusive rights to the ornamental useof the trademark. The chapter two and chapter three discusses the rule of aestheticfunctionality and trademark dilution in the cases involving trademark ornamental use.On the basis of the analysis above, the chapter four focus on whether theornamental use is a type of conditional trademark use. Mainly though the typical case of trademark ornamental use of trademark, the chapter five introduced the basicstandards of trademark case which is always likelihood of confusion, although therelevant case law is currently in an extreme state of flux. The last chapter makes theconclusion.