Never mind the Oreos and Black Friday: here's a reader's cry for trade mark help

On the whole, this Kat enjoys all that is best about US culture and has few problems with it. Yes, there are exceptions. He sees no basis for importing Black Friday into a country that has no tradition for it and no Thanksgiving immediately preceding it, and he is definitely not enthusiastic about Oreos -- a biscuit (cookie, if you prefer -- he doesn't mind) that is a grey squirrel, displacing many of the more subtle domestic biscuit species and diminishing their markets. The receipt of an email mentioning Oreos on Black Friday was not therefore likely to please him overmuch. That said, the reference to Oreos was quite a respectable one since it provided the context for a reader's query which is in need of a crowd-sourced response from readers of this weblog. She writes:

Thinking about advertising and the horrifying discovery that YouTubers don’t make videos of themselves eating Oreos just for our light entertainment, do any IPKat readers know of any recent cases where trade mark owners have challenged unauthorised use or inclusion of their signs in an artistic or literary work (particularly television/film), either on the basis of trade mark legislation or passing off/false endorsement? 

Or do they perhaps know of any cases that might shed some light on whether unauthorised placement in such works can, in and of itself, constitute use for the purpose of keeping a trade mark registration alive?

This Kat sees some exhaustion of rights issues looming large, not to mention malicious falsehood actions where the portrayal of the trade marked product is effectively defamatory of it. However, he isn't going to leap in at this stage since he is curious to know whether there has been much in the way of litigation.  He recalls the skirmish between Unilever and the far-right British National Party over the inclusion of an IP-protected Marmite jar in one of the latter's political broadcasts but is pretty certain that it never reached court.

Readers, it's up to you! Please post your answers below or email to the IPKat here.

The eating of Oreos on YouTube here, here, here and here
Deep-fried Oreos: competition for deep-fried Mars bars?
Oreos: addictive to rats here
The Oreo Cat here