Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp

摘要

Even without a directive from the Court, the opinion in this case does provide a means of resolving the circuit split with regard to likely consumer confusion, if properly interpreted. The Court's outright rejection of any rights of attribution for Fox, even in the face of Dastar's nearly "wholesale reliance," should be enough to jettison both the "substantial similarity" and "bodily appropriation" standards in the split circuits. A careful re-reading of the statutory language in a manner consistent with the Court's holding may well help guide the split jurisdictions toward a compatible likely confusion standard. This is exceedingly important because moral rights of attribution are properly granted, if at all, by statute. So long as they do not interfere with the federal copyright or patent law, states remain free to promote originality and creativity in their domains. Whether any stales will add or expand current artistic rights legislation in response to this case remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the holding in this case should sufficiently discourage any further inappropriate extension of the Lan-ham Act beyond its specific and limited trademark and unfair competition applications.