What’s Worse Than Cleaning Up A Meth Lab? A Trademark Injunction Against Using “Meth Lab Cleanup” In Metatags
13 11 2015Technology & Marketing Law Blog
August 3, 2015
Eric Goldman
Opinions like this make me really crank-y. The litigants compete in the meth lab cleanup business. The plaintiff has registered trademarks for “Meth Lab Cleanup LLC.” Right away, we already know that weaponizing highly descriptive terms like that can cause legal mischief and produce dubious outcomes. So perhaps the rest of this post shouldn’t surprise you that much.
A previous lawsuit between the parties resulted in a confidential 2011 settlement agreement. The defendant agreed not to use the trademark or colorable variations “in connection with any trademark, service mark, trade name, logo, design, Internet use, website, domain name, metatags, advertising, promotions, solicitations, commercial exploitation, television, webbased or any other program, service, or otherwise.” However, in a tautological nod to descriptive fair use, the defendants could “continue to use the term ‘meth lab cleanup’ to generally describe the nature of services offered by Spaulding Decon, subject to the limitation, and that such use is not an intellectual property infringement.”
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