In a December 11, 2013 ruling, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin granted defendant Regent Baby Products Corp.'s summary judgment motion to dismiss plaintiff Luv N' Care, Ltd.'s trade dress infringement action over infant sippy cups. In considering the motion, Judge Scheindlin noted that a "plaintiff asserting a trademark infringement claim must show first that its trade dress or trademark is a protectable interest under the Lanham Act, and second that there is a likelihood of confusion. If a plaintiff offers no evidence of a protectable interest, a court need not consider likelihood of confusion."Regent did not contest likelihood of confusion, but instead argued that Luv N' Care's cups are not entitled to trade dress protection because they are generic. In support of its argument, Regent submitted "exhaustive evidence" of numerous designs similar to Luv N' Care's cups "that have been widely available on the market for over two decades, through submission of third party catalogs and websites of online retailers." Judge Scheindlin accepted this evidence, and ruled:
There is no genuine issue of material fact as to whether these designs are generic. [Luv N' Care's] trade dress descriptions refer to common shapes frequently used in the sippy cup industry -- a "generally cylindrical cup with a slightly wider upper portion" and a cap with a "bulb-like base and a slightly pointed top" or a "football-helmet shaped cap" with a "ring shaped base" -- that even when configured together would simply be too broad and too general to warrant trade dress protection. . . . [T]hese general shapes and configurations are ubiquitous in the sippy cup market and do not warrant Lanham Act protection.The Court also rejected Luv N' Care's argument that its designs had acquired secondary meaning "as irrelevant for generic trade dress. Second Circuit law is clear that 'even a showing of secondary meaning is insufficient to protect product designs that are overbroad or generic' and that '[g]eneric trade dress in never entitled to protection.'" The Court thus dismissed the trade dress claims.
In a subsequent February 13, 2014 ruling, Judge Scheindlin stayed the remaining design patent infringement claims so as to avoid duplicative trials of the trade dress and design patent infringement claims should the trade dress claims proceed to trial first, and the design patents later survive reexamination. The Court also declined to permit an interlocutory appeal, finding that the plaintiff's request did "not raise a controlling question of lwa, 'a new legal question or [a legal issue] of special consequence appropriate for interlocutory review."
