Business Law 5th Edition by David Twomey ,Marianne Jennings ,Stephanie Greene

Exercise 14

Michael Cram alleged that he was the sole creator of a unique talking bottle opener. His product was very successful and he licensed the product to numerous NCAA schools, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, NASCAR, and various movie and TV studios. Cram became aware that a similar talking bottle opener, featuring McFarland's movie character "Ted," was sold with DVDs of the movie. Cram sued Seth McFarland, the creator of Ted; Universal Studios, the producer of the movie; and Target, which distributed the product, for trade dress infringement. Cram maintains that the trade dress consists of the shape of the plastic handle; the C shape of the metal opener; the no-button activator technology; the use and placement of a single image on the opener; the use and placement of the eight speaker holes; the quality of the sound; and the triggering of the sound by pressure on the metal opener. Do you think that Cram will be successful in his trade dress infringement suit [Bryanna Cappadona, Seth MacFarlane Is Being Sued for Plagiarizing Ted Bottle Openers , BOSTON MAGAZINE, Feb. 27, 2015, http://www.bostonmagazine.com/artsentertainment/blog/2015/02/27/seth-macfarlanesued-ted-bottle-openers/]