Monday, May 14, 2012

Australian Dastar-type cases

Robert Burrell led me to two quite interesting Australian cases raising Dastar type issues: In Christodoulouv Disney Enterprises Inc [2005] FCA 1401 (Federal Court of Australia), the plaintiff registered THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME for entertainment services and sued Disney over its movies of the same name.  The court held that Disney’s use of these words as film titles and on related goods did not constitute use as a mark, at least in the context of a public domain work.  Burrell also points to a related result in Musidor BV v Tansing (1994) 52 FCR 363 (Federal Court of Australia – Full Court) (use of “The Rolling Stones” on the cover of lawful but unauthorized sound recordings was legitimate).

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