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Software Maker Files Appeal in Batman Film Trademark Suit
Software company Fortres Grand is pressing to revive its trademark infringement claims against Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. for using the name of the real-life “Clean Slate” computer program in the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises. Lawyers for the security software maker, based in Plymouth, IN, have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to give the company a second chance in its fight against Warner Bros. Fortres Grand contends its sales of its software dropped in half after consumers mistakenly believed it was the same program mentioned in the 2012 Batman film.
In the trial court, Chief U.S. District Judge Philip Simon in the Northern District of Indiana dismissed Fortres Grand's claims as “implausible” because no one would believe the software maker had sponsored ' or had any connection to ' the Batman film. Fortres Grand Corp. v. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., 3:12-cv-535. Fortres Grand attorney Phillip Barengolts said in an appellate brief filed in October 2013 that the drop in sales after the release of the movie confirmed “reverse confusion,” in which a larger use ' in this case, Warner Bros. ' “saturates the market with a trademark similar to or identical to that of a smaller, senior user.”
“Further, Barengolts continued in the brief, “given the large-scale merchandising that accompanies major blockbusters, it is not implausible to conclude that consumers may believe that references to a software they recognize from The Dark Knight Rises are for the same software they saw in the Film, and not for the software of a much smaller, but nonetheless senior, user of the mark Clean Slate.”
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