## Facts

- Pantera created the original musical group named Exposé in 1984; the initial lineup achieved limited commercial success and was not prominently identified with the name in marketing.
- In 1986, Pantera replaced the original performers with Jeanette Jurado, Ann Curless, and Gioia Bruno, who became the commercially successful incarnation of Exposé.
- The Jurado/Curless/Bruno lineup released albums with significant success, and their images were used on album covers and in promotions tied to the Exposé name.
- Crystal Entertainment & Filmworks, Inc. and Crystal Entertainment & Filmworks II, Inc. (collectively, Crystal) claimed trademark rights in Exposé as an assignee of Pantera’s purported rights.
- In 2006, after a period of inactivity, Jurado, Curless, and Bruno entered into a written agreement with Crystal that licensed them the right to use the Exposé name for renewed performances; Crystal collected fees and exercised limited operational control.
- The performers later stopped paying licensing fees and notified Crystal that they intended to seek federal registration of the Exposé mark through their company, Walking Distance Entertainment, LLC.
- Crystal sued for breach of contract and trademark-related relief; after a bench trial, the district court ruled that the performers and Walking Distance were the common-law owners of the Exposé mark and rejected Crystal’s claims.

## Issues

1. Whether Crystal proved enforceable common-law ownership rights in the Exposé mark sufficient to support its trademark claims.
2. Whether the district court correctly determined that Jurado, Curless, Bruno, and Walking Distance owned the Exposé mark at common law.
3. Whether, absent enforceable rights in the mark, the court needed to reach consumer confusion or other infringement elements.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- The court upheld the finding that Jurado, Curless, Bruno, and Walking Distance were the common-law owners of the Exposé mark.
- The court concluded the record supported that Crystal lacked enforceable rights in the mark, so its infringement theory failed as a threshold matter.
- Because Crystal lacked enforceable rights, the court did not address consumer confusion.
- The court rejected Crystal’s remaining grounds for relief as meritless.

## Legal Principles

- Common-law trademark rights in an unregistered mark depend on actual use in commerce and ownership is determined by who controls the nature and quality of the services identified by the mark.
- For a performing group name, ownership commonly follows the performers who the public associates with the name and who control the performances and related goodwill.
- A plaintiff must possess enforceable rights in a mark to pursue infringement; if ownership fails, courts may resolve the case without analyzing likelihood of confusion.
- Contractual labels or claimed historical assignments do not override evidence that goodwill and public recognition are tied to different actors who actually use and control the mark.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that the Exposé mark belonged at common law to the performers who had long been publicly identified as Exposé and who controlled the performances, leaving Crystal without enforceable rights and unable to sustain its trademark and related claims.


Crystal Entertainment & Filmworks, Inc. v. Jurado, 643 F.3d 1313 (11th Cir. 2011)