‘Bad Spaniels’ Toy ‘Hall Pass’ Pits Trademarks, First Amendment

The Supreme Court’s analysis of a dispute over a pun-laden dog toy will reach beyond Jack Daniel’s trademarks and may lead to new rules for trademark use in expressive works—and what counts as such a work.

Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. convinced the high court to review an appellate reversal that found a whiskey bottle-shaped dog toy labeled “Bad Spaniels” constitutes an expressive work and non-infringing parody. The whiskey maker—along with the American Intellectual Property Association and International Trademark Association—argues that the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit extended a test for trademark uses in expressive works past the ...