West Coast Video competitor Blockbuster Video places a billboard on a stretch of freeway advertising West Coast Video at an upcoming exit. In reality, there is no West Coast video at this release; it's more of a hit video. The consumer, expecting to find a video store on the West Coast, sees the hit video and decides to choose the appropriate replacement. Even though the confusion has been cleared up, Blockbuster still takes ownership of West Coast Video's trademark customer base. So you can see that IIC is meant to fight against a potentially unfair attempt to take advantage of a competitor's brand.
Critics of the IIC believe that it is perhaps too vague a concept and that the definition is too imprecise. From my understanding of the layman, the idea of a bait and switch scenario would seem to have an element of uncontroversial and unfair fraud, and jewelry retouching service perhaps the extent to which consumers will understand the misidentification of the brand at the time of making the purchase could be the deciding factor as to whether it is legally enforceable or not. Lawyers said there may not be enough case law to show
how solid the concept of IIC really is. There is uncertainty as to how it may be interpreted, and that leaves the door open to lawsuits based on an uncomfortably vague concept. Some of the most compelling critics argue that the concept should be abandoned in favor of the more specific tests established to determine whether or not a breach has occurred, period. A district judge initially dismissed the MTM/Amazon lawsuit in summary judgment, finding that Multi