An author of Star Trek episodes teamed up with fellow Trekkies at ComicMix LLC to publish Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!, an illustrated book that combined Star Trek characters with the stories of Dr. Seuss. Boldly used elements and illustrations from Seuss’s books Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and The Sneetches and Other Stories. Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P., owner of the intellectual property in Dr. Seuss’s works, objected to the mashup book and sued ComicMix LLC for copyright and trademark infringement and unfair competition. The district court agreed with ComicMix that Boldly constituted a fair use of Seuss’s copyrights and granted summary judgment in ComicMix’s favor on the copyright claims. On appeal, however, the Ninth Circuit concluded that all of the statutory factors of the fair use defense weighed against ComicMix and reversed the district court’s copyright ruling, but affirmed the lower court’s trademark analysis
