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TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc. | 532 U.S. 23 (2001)
Trade dress is a distinctive element of a product’s design, packaging, or manufacture that can be protected as intellectual property. TrafFix Devices versus Marketing Displays concerns the trade-dress eligibility of a functional feature.
Marketing Displays held two utility patents for a mechanism that used two springs to hold road signs upright in strong winds. Marketing Displays used this dual-spring design in the manufacture of its sign stands, which were marketed under the name WindMaster. After the patents expired, a competitor, TrafFix Devices, sent one of Marketing Displays’ spring stands off to have it copied. TrafFix then started selling sign stands using Marketing Displays’ exact spring design, under the name WindBuster.
Marketing Displays sued TrafFix for trade-dress infringement under the Trademark Act of 1964, also known as the Lanham Act. The district court held that Marketing Displays hadn’t established secondary meaning in its dual-spring design such that consumers associated that design with Marketing Displays. It also determined that the dual-spring design was functional, rendering it ineligible for trade-dress protection. It granted summary judgment to TrafFix. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. It held that, in order to deny trade-dress protection on functionality grounds, the exclusive use of the feature must put competitors at a significant non-reputation-related disadvantage. The United States Supreme Court granted cert to resolve a conflict among the circuits on the effect of prior expired patents on trade-dress claims.
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