Fortres Grand Corporation v. Warner Bros. Entertainment
Inc.
The U.S Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the
dismissal of a trademark infringement claim, finding that a real
computer software product was not similar to a movie that used an
identical name for a fictional software product in the story.
Fortres Grand Corporation v. Warner Bros. Entertainment
Inc., Case No. 13-2337 (7th Cir., Aug. 14, 2014) (Manion,
J.).
Fortres Grand provides a desktop software management program
called CleanSlate, which is used to wipe away private data from
shared, public-access computers. After Warner Bros used the
words "the clean slate" to describe a computer hacking
program in the movie, The Dark Knight Rises, Fortres
noticed a drop in sales of its CleanSlate software and filed a
trademark infringement suit against Warner Bros. Fortres
alleged trademark infringement under theories of "traditional
confusion," namely, that consumers would be confused as to
