Software company hits back in Warner trademark row
A software company that has twice had trademark claims against movie studio Warner Bros dismissed has accused an appeals court of “failing to recognise how the modern world works”.
Fortres Grand (FG) claimed that the studio’s The Dark Knight Rises, part of the Batman series of films, could have driven potential customers away because it featured a fictional device with the same name as one of its products.
The dispute centred on FG’s Clean Slate software program, used to delete internet history.
FG claimed that the film, in which actress Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman character is offered a “Clean Slate” to erase all memory of a criminal record, harmed sales of its program.
The claims were rejected by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last week, (August 14), after FG had appealed against the US District Court for the Northern District of Indiana’s dismissal of the case last year.
In a statement to WIPR following the seventh circuit’s decision, a spokesman said there was “no reason” for a person to think a technology is fictitious just because it appears in a fictional movie.
“It is unfortunate that the courts focus on the once meaningful ‘tangible’ product when markets today are also moved by so many objects that will never exist in tangible space,” a spokesman said.
In his judgment, seventh circuit judge Daniel Manion said FG had failed to “plausibly” show consumer confusion.
“Anyone who arrives at Fortres Grand's website is very unlikely to imagine it is sponsored by Warner Bros (assuming, safely, that Fortres Grand is not using Catwoman as a spokesperson for its program's efficacy),” Manion added.
But FG disputed Manion’s claims.
“It is well known that movies are filled with real product placements and have a serious obsession toward realism,” the spokesman said.
“The confusion about the source of Clean Slate software created by this movie, and its supporting websites, is enough to cause many security professionals to be resistant to installing and testing our Clean Slate software.
“For many less sophisticated potential customers, the confusion may have them avoid even visiting a website promoting Clean Slate software,” the spokesman said.
He added that the movie referred to Clean Slate software as both “a gangland myth” and “the ultimate tool for a master thief with a record".
