Odd Lawsuit Involving Minnesota Company & Indiana Jones Movie

The new Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford has been a popular movie over the last couple of weeks since it's release.  The movie, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is the lastest installment of Lucasfilm series of movies involving the fictional archeologist Indiana Jones, and is now facing a lawsuit over one or more logos being removed.

Here is the lawsuit contention according to Bring Me the News:

Filed in a northern California U.S. District Court, the complaint alleges that Lucasfilm used Frost River's "Geologist Pack" — described as a "a classic Knapsack handcrafted from traditional materials" — in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" without consulting the company or obtaining permission to do so. 

So I read the trademark law that they are using as a basis of their lawsuit.  And they could have a case.

Trademark law covers a business’s brand, slogan, logo and packaging and it may be enforced federally (under the Lanham Act) or on a state-by-state basis under existing state laws.  If a business is likely to loose customers or looses customers as a result of confusion between competitors, then the business may be able to bring a trademark infringement action under the Lanham Act.

Now, they may have a case since the logo was stripped off the sachel that Indiana Jones uses in the movie, along with a few items of clothing.  But, if they are successful in getting Lucasfilm to replace the logo that was removed from these articles, they may have a new problem.

There is a thing in movies called "product placement".  Generally if you see a product in a movie or a TV show, and you can clearly see the logo, that company has paid to have their product in the film.  So, that means that if they (Lucasfilm) puts the logo back on the products from the company (Frost River) based in Duluth, they could potentially owe a significant amount of money  They are only asking for about 75 thousand dollars.  It seems like this may have not been thought through completely.

We will have to see what happens as this thing unfolds.