Source: law/NOTES-15usc1125.md
# Lanham Act subsection (a) catalogue — 15 USC 1125 Research date: 2026-11-10. Replaces the rejected random-snippet draft. Statute IR `title15_sec1125`, sha1 `2bae2ce63bce906159a7d568db3a60983e8ea06b`, 21,823 characters; subsection (a) opening text and its nonfunctionality paragraph were read in canonical text. The corpus suppresses some subsection headings; source text remains unchanged. `text` offsets still point to the original record, not a reconstructed statute. ## Branches and doctrinal source The file models §1125(a)(1)(A) false origin/association separately from §1125(a)(1)(B) false advertising. Trademark infringement is the species requiring an enforceable mark and likely confusion; false endorsement need not involve plaintiff ownership of a registered word mark. Unregistered trade dress adds §1125(a)(3)'s claimant-borne nonfunctionality requirement. The advertising branch separately requires commercial promotion, factual falsity/misleadingness, deception, materiality, commercial injury and proximate causation. The statutory advertising clause does not itself enumerate the entire judicial five-part test. The **Genus** quotation reproduces Wells Fargo/Southland's five-part Ninth Circuit test. Its surrounding historical commercial-promotion discussion contains a competition factor: that language is deliberately not promoted into a universal requirement. **Lexmark** rejects direct competition as a necessary condition of the false-advertising cause of action. Injury must concern commercial reputation or sales and flow sufficiently directly from the deception; ordinary consumers, including businesses complaining only as purchasers, do not enter the protected zone merely because they have Article III injury. A supplier is not categorically excluded, but merely derivative business loss is insufficient. Literal falsity can permit deception presumptions under the applicable circuit; it does not erase materiality or relief-specific injury proof. **SportFuel** provides the two trademark elements and classic descriptive fair-use defense. **Bodum** distinguishes a functional feature from protected design. **VersaTop** separates registration-oriented affixation rules from infringement use and describes the flexible Ninth Circuit confusion factors. **Kroma EU** is a licensing-rights boundary, not a holding that only registered owners can sue. These holdings are attached to the corresponding blocks rather than clustered under a generic heading. ## Current-law verification and boundaries [OLRC §1125](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/119-120/t15/s1125/) was read at subsection (a); the retrieved version reports currency through PL 119-120 (October 7, 2026). Its substantive (a) paragraphs match the catalogue's scope. It separately labels importation (b), dilution (c), and cybersquatting (d); those are excluded from the liability formulas. In particular, fame and dilution exceptions are not subsection (a) elements. [Abitron Austria v. Hetronic (2023)](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1043_7648.pdf) confines §1125(a)(1) to domestic infringing use in commerce. The 2019 use-in-commerce case is therefore not a basis for worldwide liability. [Jack Daniel’s v. VIP (2023)](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-148_3e04.pdf) rejects the special Rogers threshold where the alleged infringer uses the designation as its own mark; parody can still affect confusion. [Romag v. Fossil (2020)](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1233_5he6.pdf) rejects willfulness as an absolute prerequisite to §1125(a) profits, while leaving mental state important in equity. These are current-law annotations; the catalogue does not forge local IR rule pins for these web sources. The product-design secondary-meaning boundary was checked against the [official Wal-Mart report](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep529/usrep529205/usrep529205.pdf). The origin/authorship limitation was checked against [Dastar in the official bound volume](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/539bv.pdf), 539 U.S. 23. These prevent treating original design, authorship or public-domain copying as automatic trademark liability. Lexmark itself is available in local IR and the [official 572 U.S. bound volume](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/572BV.pdf), 572 U.S. 118. This is targeted authoritative verification, not comprehensive 2026 citator treatment of every circuit factor or every false-endorsement setting. Section 1116 injunction conditions and §1117 money remedies require independent analysis; liability does not automatically produce all remedies. ## Local opinion reading record Windows are Unicode character offsets into unmodified canonical IR text, not search-result excerpts. These are substantive reading windows, not claims to have read every opinion in full. Rule pins select intact holdings/tests from those windows. Case SHA-1 values pin the exact corpus version. - **[SportFuel v. PepsiCo, 932 F.3d 589 (7th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_932/0589_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/932/0589-01`), sha1 `203df98e4bfc17cdfba2ce87c0a2c45e994ed13e`, 27554 characters. Read 3360..7944; rule pins 5934..6141, 7033..7251. Protectability plus likely confusion; Gatorade won because its Sports Fuel use was descriptive, nontrademark and in good faith. A litigant’s initial confusion argument was rejected as a source of rule text in favor of the court’s test. - **[Bodum USA v. A Top New Casting, 927 F.3d 486 (7th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_927/0486_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/927/0486-01`), sha1 `ce0e15d0c91a562d238b072227680c2394d6480f`, 31746 characters. Read 3542..5742; 6859..9059; rule pins 7169..7464, 8044..9018. Affirmed trade-dress verdict; plaintiff bore nonfunctionality burden. Court gives utilitarian and competitive-necessity tests; no protection for useful features merely because copied. - **[Louisiana-Pacific v. James Hardie, 928 F.3d 514 (6th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_928/0514_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/928/0514-01`), sha1 `471c688f92cb7d2d78e6392ce6d59925bceaa53d`, 14802 characters. Read 3000..5700; 6585..8785; 13309..14802; rule pins 4125..4449. Denied preliminary injunction: digital woodpecker imagery was not shown literally false, and audience reach/persuasion did not prove actual misleading takeaway. Distinguishes literal falsity and misleading truth. - **[Kroma Makeup EU v. Boldface Licensing, 920 F.3d 704 (11th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_920/0704_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/920/0704-01`), sha1 `8592221ae2e2466a011029534daf62b4f5e304e8`, 17048 characters. Read 8193..16500; rule pins 11514..11870. Exclusive distribution did not override agreement reserving trademark enforcement to licensor. Statutory cause-of-action issue is not jurisdictional standing. - **[VersaTop Support Systems v. Georgia Expo, 921 F.3d 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_921/1364_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/921/1364-01`), sha1 `48ced4dbb529e86d289237579add0a19772018ab`, 22488 characters. Read 3210..5410; 12327..19300; rule pins 15449..15774, 18544..19034. Infringing brochures may qualify without registration-style affixing to sold goods. Applies Ninth Circuit law and flexible Sleekcraft factors; not a nationwide fixed scoring system. - **[Genus Lifesciences v. Lannett, 378 F. Supp. 3d 823 (N.D. Cal. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f-supp-3d/volume_378/0823_01/index.html)** (`/f-supp-3d/378/0823-01`), sha1 `a49e70d114195e4099e32015562072528921d5c7`, 60000 characters. Read 18881..21681; 25153..27953; 57044..59844; rule pins 20323..21188. Reads five advertising elements distinctly; false FDA-approval claims may be judicially tested. Investor/SEC speech and product-reference databases raise commercial-promotion limits. 60,000-char truncated IR; no later unobserved disposition inferred. Historical competitor language is not adopted as a universal rule. - **[Lexmark v. Static Control, 572 U.S. 118 (2014)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/us/volume_572/0118_01/index.html)** (`/us/572/0118-01`), sha1 `2093b1be86d5c41c929396d343cc9e981ebae1c5`, 43146 characters. Read 14794..24747; 33497..34897; rule pins 19861..20047, 24018..24297, 33497..33836. Supreme Court zone-of-interests and proximate-cause tests. Explicitly rejects need for direct competitors in reputational disparagement; ordinary derivative supplier losses differ from Static Control’s pleaded linkage. ## Verification `python3 neov2/tools/lawdsl.py check neov2/law/15usc1125.law`: initial baseline: 14 statutory quotes, 12 judicial rule quotes, zero errors. Round 5 verification below supersedes these counts. Seven relevant local opinions are pinned. Independent claim-symbol check passes. No corpus edits; no author self-signoff as QA2. ## Round 5 re-audit (2026-11-10) Re-read all canonical (a)(1)-(3) text (82..1629) against [official §1125](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t15/s1125/). Found a concrete (a)(2) omission: the catalogue had not represented state entities and official-capacity employees as statutory persons. Added `covered-defendant` to all four formulas, with the exact 990..1370 anchor. Added a distinct judicial `state-immunity` defense; statutory inclusion does not settle amenability to suit. [College Savings Bank, official U.S. Reports](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-527/pdf/USREPORTS-527-666.pdf), 527 U.S. 666, 672–675, 680–691, confirms that the false-advertising suit before it lacked valid abrogation or waiver. Read local `/us/527/0666-01` opening, 6346..10500, 13000..15500 and 40000..40800; sha1 `32c53568d35cb603c1a04ae1f4cc633b4831198c`, 59,999 chars. The new rule pin is the majority's conclusion (40395..40820); later dissent is not the rule. The defense is conditional on the defendant and relief and does not equate all local governments with states. [Abitron's official majority opinion](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1043_7648.pdf), opening holding and pp. 8–10, confirms the territorial requirement. Added `domestic-use` to all formulas rather than leaving the condition only in a commerce gloss. Its exact local statutory hook is 178..194; the post-corpus opinion remains an external annotation rather than an invented local rule pin. Borderline domestic use remains fact-specific. QA1's court attribution for VersaTop is wrong: the [official opinion](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca13-18-01208/pdf/USCOURTS-ca13-18-01208-0.pdf) is **Federal Circuit**, applying Ninth Circuit trademark law. Existing case pins and the already-correct research case identity are preserved; the `likely-confusion` gloss makes that distinction explicit. The deception, materiality, commercial-interest and proximate-cause element names now label their judicial derivation, while keeping every existing ID. The (a)(1)(A)/(B) distinction, a(3) nonfunctionality burden, statutory commerce hook, Lexmark requirements, and conditional descriptive fair use were rechecked; no additional wrong pin was found. Dilution, cybersquatting and importation remain deliberately outside this subsection-(a) catalogue, not silently ignored within a claimed whole-section model. Remaining limits: precise territorial facts, state-waiver/officer-relief routes, circuit-specific endorsement/nominative/expressive-use doctrine, and remedy-specific proof. See [R5-CIVIL.md](R5-CIVIL.md).