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laloareca.bsky.social
@laloareca.bsky.social
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design-law.bsky.social
A defendant has moved to dissolve the preliminary injunction in a #ScheduleA case. This argument is interesting. But I want to see the towel (there are no pictures in this brief): www.scribd.com/document/925...
Before the Court even reaches a confusion analysis, the threshold question is whether WAWSAM has used any of the trademarks or copyrighted works that Sony actually pleads in its Complaint. Sony identifies a broad portfolio of intellectual property, including the PLAYSTATION® word mark, related marks such as PS4®, PS5®, DUALSHOCK®, and DUALSENSE®, and various slogans. The Complaint also references several registered copyrighted works tied to Sony’s video game titles, including Astro Bot, Astro’s Playroom, and Astro Bot Rescue Mission. The record here shows that none of these marks or works are present in WAWSAM’s towel. The towel’s design consists of a generic, cartoon-style game controller decorated with playful, non-source identifiers such as lightning bolts, stars, a soccer-ball icon, and the phrase “GAME ON.” The buttons are labeled A/B/X/Y, letters commonly associated with non-Sony controllers and clearly different from PlayStation’s well-known triangle, circle, square, and cross symbols. There is no use of the words “PlayStation,” “PS,” “Sony,” “PS4,” or “PS5,” no PlayStation “PS” logo, and no depiction of any of the copyrighted game artwork Sony has identified. Even the outline of the controller itself is a stock silhouette widely used in the gaming industry to depict generic gamepads. It lacks the distinctive design elements that could plausibly point to Sony, such as the central touchpad panel, the PlayStation logo placement, or the DualSense light bar. In short, the imagery is a decorative gaming motif, not a reproduction of Sony’s trade dress or copyrighted works. To the extent Sony suggests that its controllers constitute protectable trade dress, the basic features of a gamepad—two grips, a directional pad, face buttons, and analog sticks—are functional and ubiquitous. Trade dress law does not give Sony a monopoly over functional controller features, and even if protection were possible, it would require proof of secondary meaning linking those features to Sony in consumers’ minds. Sony has offered no such evidence, and the towel design is missing the key attributes that distinguish a PlayStation controller from any other.
September 30, 2025 at 1:17 PM