U Of Alabama Wants To Have Its Cake And Sue You Too

from the trademark-insanity dept

Fri, Sep 14th 2012 1:06pm — Mike Masnick

We've talked a few times recently about the insanity created by over-aggressive intellectual property enforcement when it comes to universities, and the University of Alabama really is a prime example. After all, this is the school that sued a local artist for painting (very popular) commemorative paintings of UA football moments. Thankfully, it recently lost that case, but I guess the lawyers at Alabama didn't quite get the message that perhaps they shouldn't be so quick to dash off legal nastygrams. It appears that the lawyers in charge of enforcing UA's trademarks were quick to send off a legal nastygram to a local baker because she was making hand-decorated cakes and cookies with "UA-related" imagery:

[Mary] Cesar is owner of Mary's Cakes & Pastries in downtown Northport. The bakery is known for its customized cakes, but it also sells fresh-baked pastries and iced and decorated form-cut cookies. During the last three to four years, its cookies, especially during the football season, have included hats with a houndstooth-like icing pattern, footballs and elephants with the letter “A.” Some customers also ordered cakes decorated with a Crimson Tide theme.

Yeah, just one problem: she was doing that for the university itself.

Mary Cesar created a cake that resembled the BCS National Championship trophy for the Crimson Tide's athletic department for National Signing Day in February. And when the University of Alabama Law School held a reception for its recent graduates, it ordered 10 dozen cookies decorated with a capital “A” for Alabama from her bakery.

Cesar announced that she couldn't afford to fight the legal nastygram, and was going to stop producing the popular baked goods. After the story got out, the University quickly went into damage-control mode and issued an apology, claiming that it was "not consistent with the protocol we normally follow for local vendors on trademark issues." Given the lawsuit mentioned above, it's not clear that's really accurate. Of course, part of the culprit here may be that UA outsourced its trademark enforcement to a third party. Collegiate Licensing Co., based in Atlanta, is who the letter actually came from. It would seem that if you're seeking to build up goodwill with local merchants who supply your own staff with university-themed baked goods, perhaps the first thing you should do is not let lawyers from some other state start nastygramming them.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: baked goods, trademark, university of alabama

16 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 14 Sep 2012 @ 12:39pm

Systemic problem
I'm pretty sure that if you want to build up goodwill at all, you shouldn't let any lawyers that are not intimately familiar with your business send out legal nastygrams to anyone.

This sounds more like a systemic problem with the way legal services and the "professionals" involved are acting all around the country/world. How many of the bogus legal threats are coming as a result of lawyers running out of control and threatening/suing anything they conceivably can instead of having someone looking over their shoulder asking if it really makes sense from a business/PR perspective?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- That Anonymous Coward (profile), 14 Sep 2012 @ 1:11pm
  
  Re: Systemic problem
  You hear enough news stories about how IP is our most valuable asset, and this is where you end up.
  You listen to the stories and studies claiming billions of dollars are being stole from people who own IP, and you want your piece of the pie. Someone offers to do it for you and will send you checks, you sign on the dotted line and you know your safe... until you destroy your image.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
sehlat (profile), 14 Sep 2012 @ 1:22pm

Crimson Tide vs. Tsunami of Anger
And the Crimson Tide apparently saw some sort of reason:

http://www.caketalkblog.com/2012/09/how-it-ended.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- That Anonymous Coward (profile), 14 Sep 2012 @ 1:25pm
  
  Re: Crimson Tide vs. Tsunami of Anger
  She should have fought, and demanded that they sue the customer who ordered the offending material as well.
  Picture the looks on the lawyers faces not knowing which side to sit on.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - sehlat (profile), 14 Sep 2012 @ 2:41pm
    
    Re: Re: Crimson Tide vs. Tsunami of Anger
    Fought with what? A lady who is (somewhat) making a living in this economy versus a big university with lawyers coming out of their ears and a multimillion-dollar football program?
    
    Yes. Everybody loves a David vs. Goliath story. However, David with his sling versus "Nuke him from orbit."? Good luck to David.
    
    It's good that the priests of the local football religion figured out that creating martyrs might just NOT be the best idea anybody's ever had.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - That Anonymous Coward (profile), 15 Sep 2012 @ 8:10am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Crimson Tide vs. Tsunami of Anger
      By getting the University named as well in the lawsuit.
      I was not suggesting she engage in a giant legal battle, but force the Universities lawyers to have to sit on both sides of the court room fighting each other.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
MrWilson, 14 Sep 2012 @ 1:43pm

Being from Alabama of sorts, I'm not surprised at all that people would want U of Alabama logos and such on their cakes because Football is a religion down there, but that micro-ultra-nationalism is sadly more offensive to me than the University lawyering up to try to make money off of the stupid people who worship their college football program.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2012 @ 6:45pm
  
  Re:
  Seriously? People that like to support a football team by buying team-themed pastries offends you? Are you equally disgusted by students that wear high school letter jackets or green on St. Patrick's day? I bet you're a hoot on the 4th of July...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - MrWilson, 15 Sep 2012 @ 12:48pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I wasn't referring just to the people who want the logo on their cakes. I'm referring to the people who treat college football like a religion - people with whom I interacted on a daily basis for several years when I lived there.
    
    A perfect example is the Toomer's Corner tree poisoning incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Tigers#Toomer.27s_Trees_poisoned. Anyone who decides to poison 130+ year old trees and potentially groundwater also over a stupid college sports rivalry is definitely taking this shit too seriously.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2012 @ 7:16pm
  
  Re:
  "the University lawyering up to try to make money off of the stupid people who worship their college football program."
  
  Did you even read the article? Said stupid people are the University. The University told the baker to use their logos for products for the University. It then sued her for complying with its demands.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - MrWilson, 15 Sep 2012 @ 12:38pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I'm referring to the fact that the university hired a third party to enforce their IP. The specifics of this case are a result of that action, regardless of whether the clients of the baker were employed by or represented the university.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2012 @ 2:54pm

I keep my "UA-related imagery" in the privacy of my own home. I do not upload or redistribute it in any way. As far as I'm concerned, the government should have no say in what a person looks at in the privacy of his own home for his own personal enjoyment.
What does this have to with the University Of Alabama?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2012 @ 3:08pm

I would have ceased all dealings with the university and immediately started decorating with the logos of UA's biggest rival.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TDR, 14 Sep 2012 @ 3:20pm

Life is like a box of U of A cookies. You never know if it'll get you sued.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2012 @ 3:36pm

Must have gone to UGA. LAW.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thomas (profile), 15 Sep 2012 @ 10:12am

Great business model
Pay/encourage local merchants to support the university, then sue them. How can you possibly lose? So what will they do next year when no merchants are willing to do anything for the university? Just goes to show that universities these days are all about profit and money, by whatever means they can do it. Of course the baker should have demanded that the university be named as a defendant as well, since the university ordered the stuff.

Maybe next year they will find that merchants will not even sell university approved merchandise.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]