FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
VISA INTERNATIONAL SERVICE
No. 08-15206
ASSOCIATION,
D.C. No.
Plaintiff-Appellee,
CV-01-00294-
v.
LRH/LRL
JSL CORPORATION,
OPINION
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Larry R. Hicks, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
January 14, 2010—San Francisco, California
Filed June 28, 2010
Before: Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, J. Clifford Wallace and
Richard R. Clifton, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Chief Judge Kozinski
9347
COUNSEL
Bradley L. Booke, Moriarity, Badaruddin & Booke, Las
Vegas, Nevada, for the defendant-appellant.
Michael J. McCue, Lewis and Roca LLP, Las Vegas, Nevada,
for the plaintiff-appellee.
OPINION
KOZINSKI, Chief Judge:
She sells sea shells by the sea shore. That’s swell, but how
about Shell espresso, Tide motor oil, Apple bicycles and Play-
boy computers? We consider the application of anti-dilution
law to trademarks that are also common English words.
Facts
Joseph Orr runs eVisa, a “multilingual education and infor-
mation business that exists and operates exclusively on the
Internet,” at www.evisa.com. At least he did, until the district
court enjoined him. Orr traces the name eVisa back to an
English language tutoring service called “Eikaiwa Visa” that
he ran while living in Japan. “Eikaiwa” is Japanese for
English conversation, and the “e” in eVisa is short for
9350
VISA INTERNATIONAL v. JSL CORP.
Eikaiwa. The use of the word “visa” in both eVisa and
Eikaiwa Visa is meant to suggest “the ability to travel, both
linguistically and physically, through the English-speaking
world.” Orr founded eVisa shortly before his return to Amer-
ica, where he started running it out of his apartment in Brook-
lyn, New York.
Visa International Service Association sued JSL Corpora-
tion, through which Orr operates eVisa, claiming that eVisa
is likely to dilute the Visa trademark. The district court
granted summary judgment for Visa, and JSL appeals.
Analysis
[1] A plaintiff