Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc.
| Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc. | |
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| Argued November 12, 2002 Decided March 4, 2003 |
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| Full case name | Victor Moseley and Cathy Moseley, dba Victor's Little Secret, v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., et al. |
| Docket nos. | 01-1015 |
| Citations | 537 U.S. 418 (more)
123 S.Ct. 1115, 155 L.Ed.2d 1, 65 U.S.P.Q.2d 1801
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| Prior history | V Secret Catalogue v. Moseley, 259 F.3d 464 (6th Cir. 2001), reversed |
| Subsequent history | 558 F. Supp. 734 (W.D. Ky. 2008) (judgment for V Secret, Supreme Court decision superseded by statute), aff'd 605 F.3d 382 (6th Cir. 2010), cert. denied 131 S.Ct. 1003 (2011), rehearing denied 131 S.Ct. 1627 (2010) |
| Holding | |
| A claim of trademark dilution requires evidence of actual dilution, not merely a likelihood of dilution | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Stevens, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer |
| Concurrence | Kennedy, joined by Breyer |
| Laws applied | |
| Federal Trademark Dilution Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125, 1127 | |
Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., 537 U.S. 418 (2003), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that, under the Lanham Act, a claim of trademark dilution requires proof of actual dilution. This decision was later superseded by the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 (TDRA).
Trademark law in the United States was adopted from the common law of England and is part of the law of unfair competition. In 1925, an influential law review article described the dilution of trademarks through blurring where a product uses a name that is similar to a trademark and causes an erosion of its uniqueness. Starting in 1946, various states began to adopt anti-dilution provisions in their trademark statutes. The federal government followed suit in 1995 with the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA). This federal legislation applied to famous marks and made a party liable if it used a similar mark that diluted a famous mark's distinctiveness. However, the legislation did not define terms to establish what constituted a famous mark or articulate a clear standard for determining liability. As a result, as trademark cases were litigated in federal courts, a split developed between the different federal circuit appellate courts regarding issues such as what is a famous mark, whether a regional mark could be a famous mark, and whether a dilution claim required proof of economic harm to the trademark holder.
Victoria's Secret, a registered trademark owned by V Secret Catalogue, Inc., was found in 1988 to market moderately priced high quality lingerie in stores designed to look like a woman's bedroom. By 1998 the company spent $55 million in advertising its brand, operated 750 Victoria's Secret stores, including two in Louisville, Kentucky, and distributed 400 million copies of its catalogue.
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