Transcript and Webcast of House hearing on Trademark Dilution Revision Act available here.
Excerpt from testimony of Anne Gundelfinger (of Intel), president of INTA, discussing dilution by blurring:
Let us take Intel¡¯s PENTIUM mark as an example. (I use PENTIUM as an example not to promote it here as a famous mark, but rather because I do not presume to borrow another company¡¯s mark for this example.) Assume that PENTIUM, one of Intel¡¯s premium brands for microprocessors, is a mark that is ¡°widely recognized by the general consuming public of the United States.¡± Intel is in the computer industry, and the PENTIUM brand has brand attributes that include cutting-edge technology, premium performance, and integrity. If a third party were to adopt the PENTIUM mark for real estate brokerage services or sportswear, not only would the singular association between Intel and its PENTIUM brand be lost over time, but its brand attributes would be blurred and dampened by the brand attributes of the decidedly un-high-tech brokerage services and/or sportswear þu consumers would learn over time to distinguish between the different PETNIUM brands, their sources, and their brand attributes. In short, dilution would be highly likely, even if the impairment to the PENTIUM mark takes years to manifest. As noted earlier, the point is to stop the impairment before the damage is done.