The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit earlier this week ruled in favor of Viacom in a trademark fight over the media conglomerate’s Floribama Shore reality television show. MGFB, the company that filed the appeal, owns the “FLORA-BAMA” trademark and owns and operates the Flora-Bama Lounge on the border of Florida and Alabama. The company filed a cease-and-desist letter in 2017 when Viacom first aired Floribama Shore in 2017. The appeals court judges cited the First Amendment as protecting Viacom’s right to artistic use of “Floribama”. “Creative works of artistic expression are firmly ensconced within the protections of the First Amendment,” wrote the judges.
Recent Posts
- Judges Seem Frustrated with Judicial Council Arguments in Newman v. Moore Case
- Federal Circuit Reverses PTAB Win for Apple, Finding Board Erred in Its Applicant-Admitted Prior Art Analysis
- IPWatchdog Masters Panelists Urge U.S. Government to Get Organized When It Comes to AI
- Fixing the PTAB: 10 Things the USPTO Can Do to Improve the PTAB | IPWatchdog Unleashed
- Fox Succeeds in Scrapping Machine Learning Claims at CAFC Under 101