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Trademark Dilution Act of 1995

Trademark Dilution Act of 1995

The Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 was enacted as an amendment to the Lanham Act of 1946Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006trademark infringement Infringement refers to a company or individual employing a trademark under unauthorized means, which is intended to directly compete with the original or famous trademark. An example would be if a company decided to employ the word Nike to sell a new type of shoe. 
This would be considered infringement under trademark law because not only is the trademark already in use, but it is also directed to be in competition with the original Nike corporation by selling shoes. This would confuse or mislead the consumer into believing that the infringing Nike mark produces shoes of the same quality by the original Nike company. Dilution refers to the employment of mark that may already in use, but may not necessarily be used for the same type of product. 
Using the same example, if a company employed the word Nike to market shovels, it would not be competing directly because it is not marketing shoes as the original company does. Customer confusion would not be applicable because they would not relate the two products as being produced by the same company. However, customers might begin to associate the word to shovels rather than to shoes, which in essence, would harm the original Nike trademark in the sense that the association the word Nike has with shoes would be lessened. This instance would be considered as trademark dilution.
Dilution and infringement are differentiated in terms of how the possible damage to the original trademark will occur. Trademark dilution was not protected by federal trademark law until the inclusion of the Dilution Act in 1995. Many states had their own provisions regarding trademark dilution, but the Dilution Act would set certain provisions that would differentiate the two. Federal trademark law states that trademark dilution protects only famous or widely recognized trademarks, where state laws did not impose such a prerequisite as grounds for dilution. 
Secondly, states protected against trademark dilution in terms of the possibility or likelihood of its occurrence; Federal trademark law protects the explicit and actual dilution of a trademark. Lastly, under the Trademark Dilution Act of 1995, the federal trademark law