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9 March 2015Trademarks

Power with Oprah Winfrey after latest round of trademark dispute

A US court has ruled in favour of television presenter Oprah Winfrey in a dispute over the ‘Own your power’ trademark, re-affirming an earlier decision.

Judge Paul Crotty, at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, affirmed on Thursday (March 5) Winfrey's argument that her use of the phrase ‘Own your power’ on the cover of a 2010 issue of her official magazine—O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine—did not constitute trademark infringement.

Motivational speaker Simone Kelly-Brown had sued Winfrey in 2011 over Winfrey’s use of the phrase.

Kelly-Brown owns the company Own Your Power Communications and also has a registered trademark for ‘Own your power’ at the US Patent and Trademark Office. The trademark, granted in 2008, covers workshops and seminars.

In the original complaint, Kelly-Brown also took exception to a conference hosted by Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions, called Own your power, as well as Winfrey’s use of the phrase on her official website.

Kelly-Brown also alleged that by using the words, Winfrey had created a “sub-brand” and commercially exploited the phrase.

The district court originally ruled in favour of Winfrey in 2012 but Kelly-Brown appealed against the decision to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which then, in May 2013, asked the district court to review the decision.

The Second Circuit had argued that Winfrey’s use of the phrase may not have constituted fair use and may have amounted to trademark infringement, in contrast to the district court’s opinion.

But, re-assessing the case Crotty ruled that the phrase’s use in an “isolated” event was not evidence of the creation of a new brand.

Crotty also rejected Kelly-Brown’s claims that Winfrey’s use of the phrase would cause confusion between the two companies.

He said: “Since the parties offer fundamentally different services, they are not competitors. Plaintiff provides small scale/individual life coaching, while defendant uses various international platforms to send positive messages though its global media empire.”

Neither Kelly-Brown nor Winfrey responded to a request for comment.

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