Horton Hears a Vulcan

A Star Trek and Dr. Seuss mashup will Live Long and Prosper. Comics legend, Ty Templeton, and Star Trek’s “Trouble with Tribbles Episode” writer, David Gerrold, collaborated on a comic called “Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go.” The comic mashed Dr. Seuss-like drawings and dialogue with Star Trek characters. The Dr. Seuss Estate sent Templeton and Gerrold a cease and desist letter citing trademark and copyright infringement. This resulted in Kickstarter shutting down the campaign to fund the development of the comic. Litigation ensued. Victory goes to Templeton and Gerrold. A California court ruled against Dr. Seuss on the trademark claim. The court held that Templeton and Gerrold’s use of the Dr. Seuss trademarks was ‘nominative fair use’. Although the court didn’t rule yet on the copyright claims, the court indicated that the use of Dr. Seuss’ copyrighted works was sufficiently transformative to be fair use.

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. Fair use can be a defense to both trademark and copyright infringement. For trademarks, ‘nominative fair use’ means using the trademark of another in a non-commercial manner. In creative works, such as this one, the comic uses the trademark only to reference Dr. Seuss’ goods and services and not to sell a competing product or confuse the public as to the source of the products. For copyrights, fair use in a creative work is an important element in parody. A proper parody uses a source work in a completely new or unexpected way. This is referred to as “transformative use”. Caution. There’s always a fine line between fair use and infringing use. When in doubt, get an attorney’s opinion.