The Scotts Co. LLC v. The Procter & Gamble Co.

── The Scotts Co. LLC v. The Procter & Gamble Co. ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Date: June 04, 2026 Category: General NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0250n.06 No. 25-3555 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT Jun 04, 2026 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) THE SCOTTS COMPANY LLC, et al., ) Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT v. ) COURT FOR THE ) SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF THE PROCTER & GAMBLE COMPANY, ) OHIO Defendant-Appellee. ) OPINION Before: BOGGS, BATCHELDER, and MOORE, Circuit Judges. BOGGS, Circuit Judge. This is a trade-dress infringement and dilution case on interlocutory appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction. The Scotts Company LLC (“Scotts”) seeks a preliminary injunction against The Procter & Gamble Company (“P&G”) for trade-dress infringement and dilution, alleging that P&G’s weed-killer product Spruce infringes on and dilutes Scotts’s Miracle-Gro trade dress. The district court denied Scotts’s motion for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that it is not likely to succeed on the merits of either claim. For the reasons stated below, we affirm. BACKGROUND The Scotts Company LLC is an Ohio company with its principal place of business in Marysville, Ohio. OMS Investments, Inc., is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Los Angeles, California. OMS owns the trade-dress rights to the Miracle-Gro brand of plant food and lawn and garden products, and licenses that trade dress to The Scotts Company. Investments, Inc. and The Scotts Company LLC (collectively, “Scotts”) own and use U.S. Trademark Registration No. 2,139,929, which “consists of a rectangular shaped box in the colors No. 25-3555, The Scotts Company LLC, et al. v. The Procter & Gamble Co. green and yellow” for “plant food.” Scotts also asserts a common-law trade dress that goes beyond that Registration. Scotts identifies the Miracle-Gro common-law trade dress as having five elements: (1) A green and yellow color combination; (2) With each color presented as a separate horizontal band and the top color taking up a smaller ratio than the bottom color; (3) With the two bands sharing a common border that runs horizontally along the package; (4) With a straight line dividing the two colored bands; and (5) A circular horizontally centered graphic element. The Miracle-Gro line of plant food and lawn and garden products looks like this: -2- No. 25-3555, The Scotts Company LLC, et al. v. The Procter & Gamble Co. There are also a number of Scotts’s Miracle-Gro products that do not exhibit the trade dress. Approximately one-third of Scotts’s Miracle-Gro products, by revenue, are “specialty products” that come in different packaging. Here are some examples: -3- No. 25-3555, The Scotts Company LLC, et al. v. The Procter & Gamble Co. The Procter & Gamble Company (“P&G”) is an Ohio corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. P&G released a non-selective herbicide product—or “weed killer”—branded “Spruce” in November 2024. The Spruce packaging