Parody is not a defence to trademark infringement under the
Trademarks Act.
The Superior Court of Quebec recently affirmed that parody does
not excuse trademark infringement or depreciation of goodwill in a
dispute involving an unauthorized "parody" of a
newspaper. In MédiaQMI Inc. v. Murray-Hall, 2019 QCCS 1922,
MédiaQMI Inc. (QMI), the owner of the well-known registered
trademark Le Journal de Montréal, took action against the
distributor of the electronic publication Le Journal de
Mourréal. QMI claimed that the use of the mark Le Journal de
Mourréal by the defendant caused confusion and depreciated
the value of the goodwill of its mark Le Journal de
Montréal, and sought a permanent injunction and profits
derived from the unauthorized use of its trademark.
