Cengage Advantage Books: Business Law Today, The Essentials 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller

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Spotlight on Internet Porn
FACTS Hasbro, Inc., the maker of Candyland, a children's board game, owns the Candyland trademark. The defendants, Brian Cartmell and the Internet Entertainment Group, Ltd., used candyland.com as a domain name for a sexually explicit Internet site. Any person who performed an online search for "candyland" was directed to this adult Web site. Hasbro filed a trademark dilution claim in a federal court, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the defendants from using the Candyland trademark.
ISSUE Did the defendants' use of the word candyland in connection with a sexually explicit Web site violate Hasbro's trademark rights?
DECISION Yes. The district court granted Hasbro a permanent injunction and ordered the defendants to remove all content from the candyland.com Web site and to stop using the Candyland mark.
REASON The court reasoned that Hasbro had shown that the defendants' use of the Candyland mark and the domain name candyland. com in connection with their Internet site was causing irreparable injury to Hasbro. As required to obtain an injunction, Hasbro had demonstrated a likelihood of prevailing on its claims that the defendants' conduct violated both the federal and the Washington State statutes against trademark dilution. "The probable harm to Hasbro from defendants' conduct outweighs any inconvenience that defendants will experience if they are required to stop using the CANDYLAND name."
WHY IS THIS CASE IMPORTANT? This was the first case alleging dilution on the Web. The court precluded the use of candyland.com as a URL for an adult site, even though consumers were not likely to confuse an adult Web site with a children's board game.