運動名人案所教我們知名度保護一事
To address the growing trend of right of publicity cases, we draw on our experience protecting the publicity rights of three of the most famous athletes of all time: Michael Jordan, Pele and Muhammad Ali. Each of these cases provides guidance about the reach of the right of publicity.
從三位運動界之名人案例–麥可·喬登、球王比利、拳王阿里–引導出知名度可觸及之範圍。

Jordan v. Dominick's: Establish an intellectual property policy, and follow it.

Jordan v. Dominick's Finer Foods LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, brought on behalf of Jordan, involved an advertisement for Dominick's, a major supermarket chain in the greater Chicago area at the time.
喬丹之訴訟代理人代表喬丹在伊利諾州北區地方法院對在大芝加哥區之Dominick超市連鎖店起訴，主要訴求為Dominick超是在廣告中利用喬丹飛人的騰圖、姓名及有關聯想到喬丹的因子。

The advertisement was printed in a commemorative edition of Sports Illustrated magazine that was published in connection with Jordan's induction into The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The advertisement included the Dominick's name, its logo, a photo of its "Rancher's Reserve" steak and a coupon. It also included Jordan's name, his iconic number 23, the black and red colors of the Chicago Bulls, and a silhouette that resembles the Jumpman logo used for the Jordan brand at Nike Inc. A simple message linked Jordan to the image of the steak: "You Are a Cut Above."

The purpose of the case was to protect Jordan's right to control who can use his identity and how they can use it. The defense was straightforward. The defendants argued that they did not take much of Jordan's identity, and, so, they should not have to pay much. In fact, there were fewer than 150,000 copies of the commemorative issue distributed and only slightly over 40,000 copies sold.

Our response was an argument that Jordan's former agent, David Falk, had used over the years, which he called the Hope Diamond theory. If you want the Hope Diamond, you have to buy the whole thing.
You cannot just chip a little piece off. If you could, everyone would do that. The owner would lose control and there would be nothing left.
 

We presented evidence that Jordan only enters into contracts in the range of $10 million. He does not enter into small, one-off contracts of the kind that Dominick's wanted to use to value what it had taken. The jury's verdict was for $8.9 million dollars. Jordan donated all the proceeds to 23 charities in Chicago, confirming that the case was not about personal enrichment but about maintaining control over the use of his identity.

One of the key lessons from this case is that organizations should establish an intellectual property policy and adhere to that policy. At the time that it published the Jordan ad, Dominick's had an established policy requiring that all uses of others' intellectual property be submitted in advance to the legal department. But in its eagerness to use Jordan's identity to promote its products, Dominick's violated its own policy.