reverse confusion doctrine
reverse-confusion doctrine. Intellectual property. The rule that it is unfair competition if the defendant’s use of a title that is confusingly similar to the one used by the plaintiff leads the public to believe that the plaintiff’s work is the same as the defendant’s, or that it is derived from or associated in some manner with the defendant. • Under the conventional passing-off form of unfair competition, similarity of titles leads the public to believe that the defendant’s work is the same as the plaintiff’s work, or is in some manner derived from the plaintiff. But in reverse confusion, the unfair competition results from the confusion created about the origin of the plaintiff’s work. [Cases: Trade Regulation 334. C.J.S. Trade-Marks, Trade-Names, and Unfair Competition § 87.]
