P&G "shell image" toothpaste ad sequence not protected by copyright -- Colgate attorney.
This article was originally published in The Rose Sheet
Executive Summary
P&G "SHELL IMAGE" TOOTHPASTE ILLUSTRATION NOT COPYRIGHT PROTECTED, COLGATE attorney Ethan Horwitz claimed in closing arguments before Judge Robert Patterson in Manhattan district court late last year. Horwitz, of the New York City firm Darby & Darby, defended Colgate-Palmolive by arguing that Procter & Gamble's depiction of anticavity action represented by dipping an egg in acid after it has been treated with toothpaste is so common an illustration as to be a standard method (scenes a faire) of conveying the anticavity action of toothpaste.