Re: TM/SM in non-commercial contexts?

Karsten,

you don't indicate whether you mean use by the "adoptee" of a mark, or use by third parties. The law with regard to use by third parties is a hot spot of concern right now, in terms of the intersection between First Amendment and fair use rights and the scope of protection offered by the law.

With regard to use by the adoptee which qualifies as use "in commerce" to support a claim of trademark rights, there is a lot of caselaw judicially interpreting the statute, and then there is the caselaw developed with regard to common law trademark protection. As a general rule, you don't have to be making money or be profit-oriented to be making a use "in commerce." To understand the parameters of this area, your best bet is to review a treatise such as McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition, which goes over the basics. Also, federal trademark protection explicitly extends to various quasi-commercial affiliations such as certification (ie there is a special section of the Lanham Act for certification marks, which are not used commercially by the certifying body, but by those entities it has certified).

Or maybe you are asking about the "merchandising" of trademarks--the use of a trademark or logo as an ornament or affiliation to add value to a product or service in a way unrelated to a designation of source, or function. This has been a hot area of development in the law. Trademark owners are pushing for merchandising protection over any usage of a mark, whether tied to the mark owner's products or services or not.  Once again, this is an area where the caselaw is rapidly developing.

Hope this gives you some leads. INTA manages a mailing list for trademark issues which is fairly active called INTA-list; I'm not sure if there is a searchable archive or not.

"Karsten M. Self" wrote:
>
> I'm interested in precedent and/or caselaw for use of trademark or
> service marks in non-commercial contexts. Most applicable would be
> publications or free-of-charge media services under a trademarked or
> service-mark protected name, logo, or brand.
>
> My understanding of trademark law is that use is restricted to
> "use in commerce" (15 USC 1051(a)(3)(C). However I don't find a
> definition of "commerce".
>
> There are numerous organizations which maintain identities but don't
> have commercial activities per se. And while I'm not sure if any of
> these use trademark or service mark protection, I suspect some do.
>
> Guidance is appreciated.
>
> --
> Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
> What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
> I was never no good after that night, Charlie.
> - M. Brando
>
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