[danShumway]

It's strong evidence that our law doesn't consider fictional portrayals of real products to be a problem. More importantly, it's strong evidence that we shouldn't be uniquely concerned over negative portrayals of trademarks.

If it's not a serious problem that brands are able to pay to portray their products in a positive light, then it also shouldn't be a serious problem that people can portray a brand in a negative light.

That's all that I was trying to get at -- that there's no reason for people to be uniquely concerned about negative product references in media if they're not also concerned about positive references.

[HBKXNCUO]

>it's strong evidence that we shouldn't be uniquely concerned over negative portrayals of trademarks.

Again I'm not sure how it's evidence of that, but I agree that we should not be uniquely concerned about negative portrayals.

I see what you are saying now though, and I agree with you on that point.

Of course the people who make a lot of money off of positive advertising generally are the ones who stand to lose a lot of money from negative portrayals, and they also happen to have a lot of money, so it's not surprise that the law does not treat them equally.