On My Mind Blog

The Pennsylvania State University v. Vintage Brand, LLC, No. 4:21-cv-01091 (M.D. Penn. Nov. 19, 2024) is an important case.

This case concerns whether or not a trademark owner’s rights are infringed when its trademarks are used without authorization on merchandise for consumers to express their allegiance to the institution or brand.  This issue is significant for academic institutions, sports teams, motion picture studios, and others who offer services and who also sell or license merchandise displaying their trademarks.

This article is about a 2024 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit arising out of the “trial of the century” in 1892 in which a jury acquitted Lizzie Borden of all charges that she had murdered her father and stepmother.  This sparked the rhyme,

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty wacks
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

A bed and breakfast named “Lizzie Borden House” is operated in Fall River, Massachusetts by US Ghost Adventures, LLC.  Ghost Adventures also provides ghost tours, and it owns incontestable federal service mark registrations for “restaurant and hotel services” of the name LIZZIE BORDEN and of a notched hatchet blade design.