Talk:Nominative use

Worldwide view

Which other countries have trademark exemptions analogous to the United States concept of nominative use? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 18:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

None, to my knowledge, although it's included within fair use in other countries. But as a specific, articulated doctrine, it's a US legal doctrine. I've removed the "globalize" tag. (The article says up-front that it's a US doctrine! Are people going to post "globalize" tags on Boston, Massachusetts or Statue of Liberty or the First Amendment to the United States Constitution? Annoying.) --Lquilter 15:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Then please dig up a citation for "it's included within fair use in other countries" and put it in the article. That's why I had applied the tag. For example, First Amendment links to the globalized equivalents freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. --Damian Yerrick (serious | business) 15:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that general legal concepts should have their own articles and should be globalized. But specific legal doctrines relate to their own jurisdictions. That's why we have First Amendment to the United States Constitution (a US-specific article) and Freedom of speech (a general legal- and rights- concept).

But "dig up" cites to write, effectively, another entire article? Ha ha. "Dig up" means actually doing pretty extensive lexis/westlaw searching and starting a whole new article. I have word-of-mouth knowledge that TM fair use has counterparts in other national jurisdictions, but no idea of what jurisdictions, or if they use the term "fair use". I've certainly never heard of "nominative use" outside the US and know for a fact that the phrase and concept (i.e., the doctrine) was made up here in the US -- heck, it's not even US-wide; it's mostly just in the 9th Circuit. If there were some reason for confusion then this article should be moved to "Nominative use (US trademark law)" and a separate article written on the general legal concept.

BTW, we have an article on fair use in trademarks -- Fair use (US trademark law)* and this article, which is also a specific US name for a specific US doctrine. We currently have no general "fair use in trademark law" type article, although I agree one should exist. But I don't have enough knowledge of non-US trademark law to do it. Nominative use is a small part of fair use in US trademark law, but a notable doctrine; I have no idea if it's similar enough in other nations to warrant a separate article.

• Fair use (US trademark law) is disambiguated to distinguish from US copyright law fair use doctrine, btw.

Look, that tag was there for more than a year with nobody adding anything. One reason may be that there's just nothing to add. The tag also doesn't make sense on its face, because the article in the first sentence says that we're talking about a US doctrine. I want more articles on non-US legal doctrine, but we can't just assume that every US doctrine has potential non-US counterparts. With all due respect, if you think that there is something out there (why you put the globalize tag on it, I presume), then you should do some of the work to try to demonstrate that there's a reason for that assumption. At least show that there's some reference, somewhere, to "nominative use" in some other body of law other than US.

--Lquilter 18:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

In that case, it may be more appropriate to take it to Wikipedia:Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Law. I have put in a request for Fair use (trademark law) there. --Damian Yerrick (serious | business) 15:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a good solution. We can also post a note on Talk:Fair use (US trademark law). --Lquilter 16:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

circuit info needed

I've added in cites-needed templates; the doctrine has been accepted by some US Circuits & rejected by others. Will fill these in later when I get a chance (unless someone beats me to it). --Lquilter 20:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's a link to a blog post, which may or may not be a RS (I don't know it's pedigree) but provides some background: [1] Dhaluza 20:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Dubious sentence

"In the same case, however, Welles was barred from using Playboy's famous bunny-ears logo - while she had a right to use the title for self-identification purposes, this did not extend to use of the logo."

I do not see anywhere in the text of this case where the court barred Ms. Welles from doing anything. The injunction was denied, and the status quo was upheld. The court notes that Ms. Welles in fact did not use the logo, and that Playboy asked her not to use it, but the court could not bar her from doing something she was not doing. Of course, if she started using the logo, Playboy could file for another injunction, but only then could the court make a ruling on whether such use was barred or not. DHowell (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Reading the opinion, I concur. It is stated several times that Ms. Welles was not using the logo. I have removed this statement. Darguz Parsilvan (talk) 12:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)