On Friday, October 6, 2006, President Bush signed the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 into law (H.R. 683).  The took effect immediately upon signing.

On a personal note, I am pleased to see this law come into being since I drafted the original complaint in Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc. (a division of Victoria’s Secret) on behalf of V Secret Catalogue.  Though Victoria’s Secret won at the trial court level (on the dilution claim – not the trademark infringement claim), the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the appeals court’s reversal on the grounds that Victoria’s Secret failed to prove actual damages.

The new law puts the meaning back in the legal doctrine of dilution, reverses the Supreme Court’s requirement that a dilution plaintiff prove actual damages, embraces the legal theory put forth by Victoria’s Secret in its original complaint and, in the words of the bill’s sponsor, “clarifies a muddied legal landscape and enables the Federal Trademark Dilution Act to operate as Congress intended.”