Nova Wines, Inc. v. Adler Fels Winery LLC

Nova Wines, Inc. (Nova) (plaintiff) was licensed to use the registered trademark “Marilyn Monroe” and common-law trademarks related to Monroe on wine packaging. For almost 20 years, Nova was the only wine producer to use branding based on Monroe. Tom Kelly Studios, Inc. (TKS) (defendant) owned the rights to certain nude photographs of Monroe, which were called the Red Velvet Collection. For a short time, Nova was licensed by TKS to use images from the Red Velvet Collection on wine bottles. During this period, Nova introduced the wine brand Velvet Collection. Pacific Licensing (Pacific) (defendant), the licensing agent for TKS, later granted Adler Fels Winery LLC (Adler Fels) (defendant) a license to use Red Velvet Collection images on Adler Fels’s new Red Velvet Collection wine. Nova filed a lawsuit in federal district court for claims including trade-dress infringement. Adler Fels’s Red Velvet Collection bottle was almost identical to Nova’s 2002 and 2004 Velvet Collection bottles. Both the Nova and Adler Fels wine bottles featured similar Red Velvet Collection photos of Monroe and overlays covering certain parts of Monroe’s body. There were some minor differences between the bottles, including the direction Monroe faced and her expression. Nova moved for a preliminary injunction to prohibit Adler Fels from releasing the challenged Red Velvet Collection wine.