By KATI CORNELL and MELISSA JANE KRONFELD
June 24, 2008
Times Square's Naked Cowboy can sue the Mars candy company over a billboard that showed a blue M&M dressed in his trademark briefs and boots, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
"Sounds like I've got $4 million coming my way," the Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, told The Post upon learning of Manhattan federal Judge Denny Chin's decision.
Burck is allowed to pursue a claim that Mars Inc. violated his trademark by splashing a video of a guitar-slinging M&M dressed in a cowboy hat, boots and briefs across a giant billboard screen in Times Square in February.
The nearly nude musician has demanded $4 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The judge found that some "consumers may mistakenly believe that the Naked Cowboy himself endorsed the copying of his 'trademarked likeness' because the M&M cowboy characters appear in a commercial setting."
