Architect Can Falsely Claim to Have Designed Buildings

Interesting note by Rebecca Tushnet. When it comes to suing a designer because s/he claims to have designed famous buildings, take note, and don’t sue under trademark or false advertisement.

Many courts have dismissed trademark claims based on false authorship because authorship is the proper subject matter of copyright law, and the court here followed those precedents.  The false advertising claim also failed because “origin of goods” means the same thing in §43(a)(1)(B), so “the Lanham Act does not provide a cause of action for false advertising where the claim is based on the authorship of a creative work.”

Tags: architecture, authorship, Copyright, design, lanham act, origin of goods