{"id":2447972,"date":"2019-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311783"},"modified":"2019-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T06:00:00","slug":"business-monday-marty-stouffer-national-geographic-still-at-odds-in-wild-america-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/business-monday-marty-stouffer-national-geographic-still-at-odds-in-wild-america-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Monday: Marty Stouffer, National Geographic still at odds in \u2018Wild America\u2019 case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A federal judge last week ruled that four of the six claims by Aspen-based Marty Stouffer Productions can proceed against National Geographic, which is accused of violating intellectual property laws by using \u201cWild America\u201d as a title for a documentary series it sells on DVD and Blu-Ray.<\/strong>
Lawsuit exhibit<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Marty Stouffer\u2019s trademark lawsuit against National Geographic has passed muster with a federal judge who ruled last week that four of six claims by the Aspen-area resident and wildlife filmmaker can proceed.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge William Martinez\u2019s 45-page ruling, which came Aug. 20, dismissed Stouffer\u2019s claims of unfair competition and copyright infringement against National Geographic. The order, however, cleared the way for Stouffer\u2019s federal claims of trademark infringement and trademark dilution, as well as his claims of unfair competition under Colorado common law and violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court believes that the appropriate question to ask is: Did the junior user (National Geographic) have a genuine artistic motive for using the senior user\u2019s (Stouffer\u2019s) mark?\u201d asked U.S. District Judge William Martinez in his order.<\/p>\n

With that question to be put to the test, Martinez wrote, \u201cIn light of these rulings, Stouffer will be given an opportunity to amend his complaint and National Geographic will be given another opportunity to move to dismiss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stouffer, whose Marty Stouffer Productions is based in Aspen, is suing National Geographic on contentions that it ripped off his ideas and its divisions stole his \u201cWild America\u201d brand for their own video productions.<\/p>\n

The suit was filed in December; National Geographic filed a motion to dismiss the claims in February, saying its work is protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Among Stouffer\u2019s allegations is that National Geographic\u2019s \u201cAmerica the Wild,\u201d a television series that debuted in 2013, \u201cbears a striking resemblance to \u2018Wild America,\u2019 replicating the most minute details of \u2018Wild America\u2019 in its production.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marty and his brother Mark starred in the original \u201cWild America,\u201d which showed the tandem journeying across North America\u2019s wildlands on a mission to capture rare nature videos. The lawsuit says it was one of PBS\u2019 most popular series, running from 1982 to 1996, and Marty Stouffer Productions invested more than $24.5 million to advertise, promote and brand the series.<\/p>\n

In court filings, National Geographic, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., argued Stouffer had no right to generic traits \u201ccommon among television shows of this type: a male star, interacting with animals, having facial hair, or of wearing a backpack and jacket while standing on snow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge ruled that Stouffer\u2019s unfair competition and copyright and infringement claims don\u2019t hold up because, in part, \u201cStouffer may believe these elements define the nature documentary genre because \u2018Wild America\u2019 made them standard. Even if true, they remain unprotectable \u2018idea(s)\u2019 or \u2018procedure(s),\u2019 \u2026 and Stouffer has not plausibly alleged that National Geographic\u2019s selection and arrangement amounts to copyright infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stouffer\u2019s suit said he had been working with National Geographic earlier this decade about some type of licensing agreement or possible purchase of the \u201cWild America\u201d film library, but the deals didn\u2019t materialize.<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge last week ruled that four of the six claims by Aspen-based Marty Stouffer Productions can proceed against National Geographic, which is accused of violating intellectual property laws by using \u201cWild America\u201d as a title for a documentary series it sells on DVD and Blu-Ray.Lawsuit exhibit Marty Stouffer\u2019s trademark lawsuit against National Geographic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 17:19:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}