How typical of Clouseau not to be there when needed. But I digress.
Inspector Clouseau is the bumbling Parisian detective in The Pink Panther movies that starred the late, great comedian Peter Sellers as Clouseau. Despite his bungling, he always managed to solve the crime. In the inaugural film, Clouseau was called on to investigate the theft of a fabulous gemstone with one small flaw which when held to the light, resembled a pink panther. Hence, the name.
The film's creator, Blake Edwards, originally intended Clouseau to be a minor supporting character in the first film, but he became the star. Six sequels followed, A Shot In The Dark, Return to Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The Revenge of the Pink Panther, Trail of the Pink Panther, and finally, Curse of the Pink Panther. Even though all of the film titles refer to it, the pink panther jewel was central only to the first film, and otherwise briefly appeared in the third installment. The name, Pink Panther, lives on not only in films, but in a cartoon series and in the theme music that won an Academy Award for Henry Mancini.
Legal proceedings were initiated by United Artists to prevent Pink Panther Beauty Corp. from registering their business name as a trademark. The issue in the case boiled down to this--how far will the Trademarks Act go in extending protection to a famous mark, even though the famous mark is used in a different field of endeavour from that of the newcomer.
The Federal Court of Appeal began its analysis by reviewing a fundamental principle of trademark law: "what is being protected is not the exclusive right to any mark that a person might think of, but the exclusive right to use it in association with certain products or services." That is why Revlon is able to protect its trademark "Red" for use in association with perfumes, and perhaps the extended range of goods that fall within a cosmetic classification, but not restaurant services or sporting goods, for example.
The Court then examined whether a famous trademark ought to be granted a wider range of protection, one that extends beyond its actual class of goods and services: "the wide scope of protection afforded by the fame of (a trademark) only becomes relevant when applying it to a connection between...the trade and services (of the two business people). No matter how famous a mark is, it cannot be used to create a connection that does not exist."
The court relied on a number of legal precedents to highlight these principles of law relating to famous trademarks. In the case of "Miss Universe versus Miss Nude Universe," even though one trademark was used in association with beauty pageants involving young, unmarried women who were carefully chaperoned, while the other was used with pageants in which contestants were required to parade unclothed before judges, the courts decided that confusion could exist since both were used in the same field or industry, namely beauty contests.
On the other hand, in a case involving Seagram Real Estate Ltd., their trademark application was permitted by the courts to become registered over the objection of the owners of the famous distillery. The court in the Pink Panther case commented on the Seagram case this way: "the trademarks were not found to be confusing, despite the fame of the registered mark. Much of the reasoning was based on the wide divergence of the types of wares involved--alcoholic beverages on one side and real estate on the other. "
United Artists argued that there was a logical connection between the entertainment business and beauty products. The Court of Appeal gave this argument short shrift, saying: "to find such a connection...would effectively extend protection to every field of endeavor imaginable. There would be no area that Hollywood's marketing machine would not control. Just because they are well-known, the whole world is not barred forever from using words found in the title of a Hollywood film to market unrelated goods."
In the end, the Court permitted the beauty parlour's trademark to become registered, but issued this warning to them. While their registration permitted them to use the words "Pink Panther", if they began to link those words with a movie theme, to drawings or to music, or even to Hollywood in general, they may be opening themselves to legal proceedings by United Artists for trademark infringement.