United States Ninth Circuit

In a trademark infringement and state tort action by Paris Hilton against the greeting card company Hallmark for using her image and catchphrase in a birthday card without her permission, a denial of defendant's motion to strike under California's anti-SLAPP statute is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff had some probability of prevailing on the merits before a trier of fact on the issue of whether defendant's use of her image was transformative; and 2) defendant could not employ the public interest defense because its birthday card did not publish or report information.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/06/2009
• Decided 08/31/2009
• Published 08/31/2009

Judges

• O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:, Before: JOHN T. NOONAN, DIARMUID F. O'SCANNLAIN, and SUSAN P. GRABER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Lincoln D. Bandlow, Spillane Shaeffer Aronoff Bandlow LLP, Los Angeles, CA, argued the cause for the appellant and filed briefs., Lynn Rowe Larsen and Timothy F. Sweeney, Law Office of Timothy Farrell Sweeney, Cleveland, OH, filed the brief for amicus curiae IMG Worldwide, Inc.


• For Appellees:
  
• Brent H. Blakely, Blakely Law Group, Hollywood, CA, argued the cause for the appellee and filed the brief.