Absolut Clarity

The Trademark Blog is unhappy amongst the IPKat’s coverage of Absolut vodka’s interest amongst Sex inwards the City past times trend of the fictional ABSOLUT HUNK displace (see the IPKat’s vi August ABSOLUT CHEEK post). Marty suspects that the IPKat was beingness ironic merely that’s non the case. Certainly there’s a bird of light-heartedness at that spot as well as this wasn’t i of our almost substantively legal blogs. However, at that spot was a serious indicate behind it – if a merchandise score possessor indulges inwards advertising of a salacious nature, tin laissez passer on notice he complain when 3rd parties usage his score inwards a like context?

Marty says “The Absolut Hunk displace is fictional, as well as thence the usage is tarnishing exclusively if yous immature adult woman the joke”. Not so. While Sex inwards the City is apparently fictional as well as the actual posters did non look widely (although i did look at a New York double-decker stop, presumably for filming purposes), the usage took house amongst Absolut’s total cooperation as well as the ikon used was shot past times the lensman used inwards the “real” Absolut campaigns. Furthermore, Absolut afterwards capitalised on the success of the ikon past times distributing cards containing the recipe for the “Absolut Hunk” cocktail featured inwards the show. The whole episode allowed Absolut to larn the best of both worlds as well as to reap the marketing payoff of a displace that was past times the admission of its vice-president of marketing “a flake salacious” as well as thence inconsistent amongst the displace that Absolut runs inwards the “real world”.

Marty goes on to enjoin that beingness featured inwards Sex inwards the City can’t survive tarnishing because Sex inwards the City is mainstream as well as can’t survive considered to survive hardcore pornography. This misses the indicate though. The declaration was never that beingness featured inwards Sex inwards the City was (self-)tarnishing. Instead, it was that beingness associated amongst a publicity displace featuring an apparently naked homo could be, regardless of where that displace appears. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 dominion of pollex for when the merchandise score possessor has used his score inwards a trend that prevents him from bringing at to the lowest degree around tarnishment claims against others ought to be, would the merchandise score possessor yell tarnishment if a 3rd political party used its merchandise score inwards the trend that it has? Here I recall there’d survive a expert adventure that Absolut would. From a European perspective, nether Article 5(2) of the Trade Mark Directive, the closest nosotros larn to tarnishment is the sentiment of detriment to repute of the merchandise mark. How tin laissez passer on notice a merchandise score possessor claim that a accused has damaged his reputation if the merchandise score possessor has already associated the reputation of his score amongst overt sexual imagery? Here, sure enough the positioning of the vodka bottle leaves a picayune to the imagination merely the direction that the hear is meant to larn into is quite clear from the residual of the image.