\u201cA nearly decade-old dispute over the intellectual property rights of instant film is headed to court. Dating back to 2017, Polaroid and Fujifilm have gone back and forth over the rights to Polaroid\u2019s \u201cclassic border logo\u201d and Fujifilm\u2019s Instax film.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in 2017, Polaroid threatened legal action against Fujifilm unless it pulled its Square film from the market, which it alleged was \u201cessentially identical\u201d to its iconic instant film. Even though Polaroid stopped manufacturing film in 2008 and did not resume until the success of the Impossible Project brought it back in 2017. While Polaroid stopped making the film, it did continue to license its trademarks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The point of contention is the \u201cclassic border logo\u201d (CBL), which is described as a \u201cvertically-oriented rectangle surrounding a small inner square, with the square positioned in a way that creates the visual impression of thin, typically white, borders along the top and sides and a thicker, typically white, border along the bottom.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In an order published today by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in the case Fujifilm North America Corporation versus PLR IP Holdings, LLC (dba Polaroid), Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald noted that Polaroid raised sufficient grounds that an average person could confuse Polaroid\u2019s CBL with Instax film.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGiven the volume and variety of this evidence, which includes customer support emails, Twitter and Instagram posts, and other online inquiries, Polaroid has sufficiently raised a genuine issue of material fact with respect to the existence of actual confusion,\u201d the order reads.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA reasonable juror could conclude that Fujifilm intended to deceive customers and trade on the goodwill engendered by Polaroid\u2019s classic border logo,\u201d the order reads. \u201cThere can be no dispute that, when removed from its packaging, Fujifilm\u2019s Instax Square film is nearly identical to Polaroid\u2019s analog instant film bearing the CBL. As Polaroid notes, Fujifilm\u2019s own employees could not distinguish between Instax Square film and Polaroid film bearing the CBL.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n