director, and Weber as exclusive photographer. Weber splashed A&F Quarterly with nudity (though non-frontal) and erotic heterosexuality and homosexuality.A&F Quarterly made its debut in June 1997 and quickly became popular. Subsequent publications were released on a quarterly basis, one for each Abercrombie & Fitch fashion season ("Spring Break", "Summer", "Back-to-School", and "Christmas"). The first issue was considered relatively tame, with subsequent publications becoming more and more explicit. Abercrombie & Fitch stores required over-age proof and obscured cover nudity; nonetheless, parents complained that the publication found its way to younger-aged children. A&F spokesperson Hampton Carney said, "it is beautiful fashion photography. It's clean, sexy, and we think our customers will really love it." A&F vs American Eagle In June 1998, Abercrombie & Fitch filed a lawsuit against rival clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, alleging that "AE impermissibly copied the designs of certain articles of clothing, in-store advertising displays, and a catalog [A&F Quarterly]." In July 1999, the court granted American Eagle's motion for summary judgment in its favor. According to A&F's initial complaint, the company identified A&F Quarterly as one of its "unique and inherently distinctive features"the creation of a cutting edge "cool" image through photographs and advertising and promotional material, such as the A&F Quarterly (the "catalog" or "Quarterly"). The Quarterly presents the Abercrombie brand and trade dress in a unique manner: namely, it features the Abercrombie brand and trade dress in a "cutout" or "clothesline" style [as opposed to only depicting models wearing its apparel] and uses color bars to illustrate the available colors of the item, while combining a consistent conceptual theme with a lifestyle editorial content of music, electronics, books, and magazine features. The catalog is printed on cougar vellum paper, which is unique for a catalog.The district court ruled that what A&F described as its distinctive trade dress was (in the words of the appellate court) "too generic and descriptive" to warrant protection under the Lanham Act. A&F appealed this judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which again ruled for American Eagle. The court stated that "Abercrombie's clothing designs and in-store presentations are legally functional non-protectable trade dress and that Abercrombie could not possibly have carried its burden of proving that American's catalog was confusingly similar to what we have presumed is the protectable trade dress of Abercrombie's Quarterly."