United States Shoe Corp. v. Brown Group, Inc.
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
740 F. Supp. 196 (1990)
Relevant factsFree
U.S. Shoe marketed its women's pumps with the slogan "Looks Like a Pump, Feels Like a Sneaker," and Brown Group marketed a similar pump using "Think Of It As A Sneaker With No Strings Attached," with fine print stating "when we say it feels like a sneaker, we're not just stringing you along," prompting U.S. Shoe to sue for trademark infringement.
IssueFree
Whether, under the fair-use doctrine in the Lanham Act, a party's use of a word or phrase is trademark infringement if it is a use, otherwise than as a trademark, which is descriptive of and used in good faith only to describe the party's goods to consumers.