The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on June 8 against a dog toy maker whose chew toy parodies a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey that the Tennessee distiller had claimed violated its trademark.
The case dealt with the intersection of the First Amendment and trademark protection laws and the extent to which one company may parody another’s product with its own product. The issue was whether the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections insulated the parody product from trademark infringement claims by the maker of the product that is being satirized.
