Revisiting Park ‘N Fly: In Pursuit of Constraints on Trademark Bullies

35 Pages Posted: 9 Oct 2015

See all articles by Kenneth L. Port

Kenneth L. Port

William Mitchell College of Law; Mitchell Hamline School of Law

Date Written: October 8, 2015

Abstract

The Supreme Court has been inextricably constraining the trademark right in the last 15 years. The Court first embarked in a wholesale expansion of the trademark right and now the Court is engaged in an effort to rein it back in.

The expansion started in 1985 with Park ‘N Fly v. Dollar Park & Fly. The Court there held that a descriptive and otherwise unenforceable trademark is made enforceable and the appropriate subject of an offensive action to enjoin a competing use if it is incontestable. The Court overruled Park ‘N Fly by implication with KP Permanent Makeup v. Lastings. In KP Permanent Makeup, the Court held that a descriptive mark used descriptively is fair use which the mark hold must tolerate.

KP Permanent Makeup appears to be only a fair use case and has been heralded as an important case clarifying fair use in trademark jurisprudence. It also emasculates the incontestability doctrine. Although there are other uses of incontestability, its primary use for descriptive marks is to rescue them from cancellation and allow them to be used offensively in enforcement actions if incontestable. With KP Permanent Makeup, a user of a descriptive but incontestable mark only need to make they claim that they are using it descriptively to entirely shift the analysis from the use of someone else’s incontestable mark to fair use.

This curtailment should come as no surprise to anyone. The Court first expanded trademark jurisprudence with Park ‘N Fly, Taco Cabana and Qualitex, and then constrained it with TrafFix, Wal-Mart, and Dastar, now KP Permanent Makeup. What is surprising is the fact that, with KP Permanent Makeup, Park ‘N Fly has been overruled by implication and the incontestability doctrine has been made superfluous. The expansion of trademark rights encourage trademark speculation and this speculation led to trademark bullying. Its constraint should have the effect of reining in trademark bullies as well.

Keywords: trademark, incontestability, Park 'N Fly, fair use

Suggested Citation

Port, Kenneth L. and Port, Kenneth L., Revisiting Park ‘N Fly: In Pursuit of Constraints on Trademark Bullies (October 8, 2015). Wake Forest Intellectual Property Law Journal, Vol. 16, 2015, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2671462

Kenneth L. Port (Contact Author)

Mitchell Hamline School of Law ( email )

875 Summit Ave
St. Paul, MN 55105-3076
United States

William Mitchell College of Law ( email )

875 Summit Ave
St. Paul, MN 55105-3076
United States

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