Dennis L. Wilson

Some of the world’s largest technology and entertainment businesses call Wilson for strategic counseling and litigation over copyright, trademark and publicity rights.

His clients include Facebook Inc., subsidiary Instagram, Lions Gate Entertainment Inc., Just Inc. and Netflix Inc.

In March 2018, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Washington federal judge’s ruling in favor of Instagram, the social media photo sharing app now owned by Facebook, against a trademark infringement lawsuit filed by a former Microsoft Corp. employee who had developed an app called “layout.”

Plaintiff Michael Swanson sought a preliminary injunction to stop Instagram from any further use of the layout mark, claiming that the similarity between the two apps will result in rampant confusion, according to court records.

Wilson and his team fought back with a 1,400-page opposition that contained extensive evidence, expert reports arguing the term is generic, and evidence highlighting Swanson’s lack of impact in the mobile app market, along with consumer survey results that revealed “layout” hadn’t acquired secondary meaning, according to court records.

The 9th Circuit panel, in an unpublished decision, affirmed Chief U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman’s denial of the preliminary injunction ruling. Swanson v. Instagram LLC, 15-35970 (9th Circuit, filed March 30, 2018).

“The most important thing is to find analogies in the brick-and-mortar world that judges relate to and explaining things in the modern conflicts in terms they understand,” Wilson said.

“In the layout case, what I highlighted [in the opposition] was that these products really were analogous to what we think of in magazine layouts, and that’s what was connecting with consumers and that’s what was, I think, apparent to everyone in finding that this wasn’t functioning as a trademark but a descriptor of what the application does,” he added.

Wilson leads Kilpatrick Townsend’s 40-member team that manages Facebook’s global trademark strategy — including prosecution, portfolio management and enforcement.

— Gina Kim