Title 15 › CHAPTER 22 — TRADEMARKS › SUBCHAPTER III — GENERAL PROVISIONS › § 1114
You must not use someone’s registered trademark in business without their permission if your use could confuse people, cause a mistake, or trick customers. If you do, the trademark owner can sue you in civil court. If someone simply makes copies or puts a fake mark on labels or ads, the owner can only get the copier’s profits or money damages if the copier knew the imitation was meant to confuse or deceive. “Any person” who can be held responsible includes the United States, its agencies, states, and their officials acting in their official roles. If a printer only prints material for others and can show they were innocent, the owner can only get an order stopping future printing. For paid ads in newspapers, magazines, similar periodicals, or certain electronic messages, the owner can only get an order stopping that ad in future issues or transmissions if the publisher or distributor was innocent. A court cannot stop an issue or transmission when doing so would delay regular delivery by normal publishing methods, unless the delay was used to avoid the law. Domain name registrars, registries, and similar authorities are generally not liable for money damages or, with limited exceptions, for injunctions when they refuse, remove, transfer, disable, or cancel a domain name under a court order or a reasonable policy against registering names identical or confusingly similar to a mark. They can face injunctive relief only if they fail to give the court control documents, improperly change a name during a case, or willfully disobey a court order. Registrars are not liable for damages unless they acted in bad faith to profit. If a registrar acts on a knowing false claim, the person who lied must pay damages and may have to restore the domain. A registrant whose name was suspended may sue after telling the mark owner and ask the court to reactivate the name. The words “violator” and “violating matter” mean what section 1125(a) describes. Finally, people who follow paragraph (11) of section 110 of title 17 and its rules are not liable here. Makers or licensors of technology that make small parts of a movie imperceptible are protected only if they give a clear notice at the start of each altered performance; that notice rule applies only to technology made after the 180-day period starting April 27, 2005. Failure to meet these rules does not automatically mean someone who used that technology committed trademark infringement.
Full Legal Text
Commerce and Trade, Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
15 U.S.C. § 1114
Title 15, Commerce and Trade
Last Updated
Sep 23, 2026
Release point: 119-110