A federal court said it plainly: depicting the landmark is not infringement.
In plain terms
In 2025 the Chamber took its trademarks to federal court in Chicago, suing hundreds of online sellers at once over Hollywood-themed products. It picked the defendants, the products, and the forum. A federal judge examined the Chamber's marks against those products — and refused to block most of them, writing that the Hollywood Sign is a real-life landmark and that merely depicting it does not infringe. The Chamber's own lawsuit produced the clearest judicial statement on record that showing the Sign is not a trademark violation.
Legal analysis
The March 10, 2025 order in No. 1:25-cv-01662 (N.D. Ill., Judge Tharp) did precisely what the Chamber's public messaging never does: it separated the registered marks from the physical landmark. Products depicting the Sign as a real-world place were outside the infringement theory; preliminary relief was denied as to most accused products. The judgments the Chamber later obtained were unopposed defaults against absent overseas sellers — they adjudicated nothing about depiction. The scoreboard after the Chamber's own chosen test case: the one contested look at the depiction theory rejected it, and no court anywhere has ever held that depicting the Hollywood Sign infringes anything. Licensing is not required. The landmark is not trademarked.
1The case
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A, No. 1:25-cv-01662, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, before Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. A "Schedule A" case: one complaint against a sealed list of mostly overseas e-commerce sellers, seeking mass preliminary injunctions and asset freezes. A companion action, No. 1:25-cv-01665, was filed in the same period. Full dockets are on PACER; this site's docket references are listed on the Documents page.
2March 10, 2025: the order that drew the line
Ruling on the Chamber's request for preliminary relief, the court distinguished the Chamber's registered marks from the physical Hollywood Sign and stated that mere depiction of the real-world landmark does not itself constitute trademark infringement. Relief was denied as to most of the accused products. The order applied the boundary this entire site documents: a mark governs branding; a landmark in an image is a place, not a brand. When the Chamber's depiction-adjacent claims finally stood in front of an Article III judge, they stopped at that line.
3What came after — and what it does not mean
Later in the case the Chamber took judgments, including a default judgment signed September 8, 2025 (docket entry 58 — the signed order is pending retrieval and will be posted on the Documents page). Default judgments against no-show defendants are not rulings on the merits of a depiction theory; nothing entered after March 10 disturbs what the court said on March 10. Expect the Chamber's messaging to cite victories from this docket. Read the dates and the postures: the contested ruling went against the depiction theory, and the wins were walkovers.
4The record before 2025
The 2025 order did not appear from nowhere. There is no public record of the Chamber ever winning a contested federal trademark case against a filmmaker, publisher, or content producer for depicting the Sign — a striking absence for an organization that has sent demand letters over student films, tourist photography, and advertising for decades. The reason is on the trademarks page: the right being asserted was never registered, and when registration of the Sign itself was attempted in 2004, the USPTO refused it. The 2025 order is the judicial confirmation of what the register already showed. The landmark is not trademarked.