{"id":1167,"date":"2015-03-10T17:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T21:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2023-07-25T12:17:49","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T16:17:49","slug":"oprah-owns-her-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/2015\/03\/oprah-owns-her-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah &#8220;Owns Her Power&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/thr-esq\/oprah-winfrey-wins-tough-trademark-779735\">Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, Oprah Winfrey was victorious in a recent trademark suit regarding\u00a0the use of the phrase &#8220;Own Your Power.&#8221; The phrase, which\u00a0appears on the cover of her magazine, <i>O,\u00a0The Oprah Magazine<\/i>, and other various Oprah products, was allegedly a registered trademark of Simone Kelly-Brown, a motivational services entrepreneur. Kelly-Brown filed the suit in 2011 and initially lost, with the court finding Oprah&#8217;s utilization of the phrase, a fair use&#8211;a description of the magazine. However, on appeal, the 2nd Circuit was less certain that &#8220;Own Your Power,&#8221; was an accurate description of the publication. Therefore, the case was sent back for further proceedings examining what exactly Kelly-Brown owned. U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty found that the phrase &#8220;own your power&#8221; did not garner trademark protection despite Kelly-Brown&#8217;s registration, because it &#8220;lack[ed] the requisite distinctiveness to be entitled to protection.&#8221; While Judge Crotty noted that it may be descriptive in the sense that it describes the motivational services offered by Kelly-Brown, the phrase had not developed a secondary meaning associated with Kelly-Brown&#8217;s business. Similarly, there was no likelihood of confusion of the use of the phrase in the context of Kelly-Brown&#8217;s services and Oprah&#8217;s empire. Therefore, there was no infringing use.<\/p>\n<p>Now Oprah can continue to own\u00a0her power without fear of\u00a0legal sanctions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the Hollywood Reporter, Oprah Winfrey was victorious in a recent trademark suit regarding\u00a0the use of the phrase &#8220;Own Your Power.&#8221; The phrase, which\u00a0appears on the cover of her magazine, O,\u00a0The Oprah Magazine, and other various Oprah products, was allegedly a registered trademark of Simone Kelly-Brown, a motivational services entrepreneur. Kelly-Brown filed the suit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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