Cengage Advantage Books: Law for Business 19th Edition by John Ashcroft,Katherine Ashcroft,Martha Patterson

Exercise 17

When the concluding question in a case problem can be answered simply yes or no, state the legal principle or rule of law that supports your answer.
Haydel Enterprises owned and operated a bakery in New Orleans, Louisiana, selling pastries such as Mardi Gras king cakes. Haydel asked an artist to design a "bead dog" to replicate the dogs made out of beads thrown at Mardi Gras celebrations. Haydel registered the words "MARDI GRAS BEAD DOG" and the bead dog design as trademarks covering items such as king cake pastries, jewelry, and clothing. Over a six-year period, Haydel sold about 80 clothing items and 300 jewelry items featuring bead dogs, plus an unidentified number of king cakes with bead dogs. One magazine article featuring Haydel's products called bead dogs "an iconic Mardi Gras symbol." Three years after Haydel registered the bead dog trademarks, Raquel Duarte began selling jewelry featuring bead dogs. Duarte filed a lawsuit against Haydel in which she asked the court to declare that she was not breaking any trademark law by selling the bead dog jewelry and requested Haydel's trademarks be canceled. Duarte argued that Haydel's trademarks were descriptive in nature and had not acquired distinctiveness whereby customers associated the trademarks with Haydel's goods. Was Duarte correct?