Five Below, Trendy Retailer, Sues 10 Below, Ice Cream Seller, For Trademark Infringement
from the i-give-up dept
When it comes to frivolous trademark lawsuits, you think you've seen it all, but then one comes along that makes you throw up your hands. Here at Techdirt, we understand that the average individual might not know some of the broader nuances of trademark law, such as the focus on customer confusion, or the requirement, in most cases, that the parties reside within the same industry or market. But that understanding goes out the window when we're talking about a lawsuit brought by a large corporation that, like, totally has lawyers and stuff. I use that tone and vernacular specifically as preparation for stating that Five Below, the large retailer with trendy products for less than five bucks, has sued 10 Below, a small chain of ice cream shops.
And before you ask, yes, pretty much all of the media covering this is actually pointing out how divergent the markets and industries of these two companies is, often in spectacularly funny fashion.
One store sells remote-controlled poop, mini-plasma balls, and Mongolian Faux Fur Blankets, all for $5 or less. The other store sells that trendy rolled ice cream.
But Five Below (currently 600 locations) says that 10 Below (five locations, only one in Philly) is violating the discount store's trademarks, and the company has told the rolled ice cream shop to find a new name.
For anyone who has watched trademark proceedings in the past, this is something of a laugher. Claiming that anybody might be confused between the type of things that Five Below sells and an ice cream shop is going to be something of a tough sell in any courtroom. And, once you understand the reason for each company's name, you will quickly realize that this is not the case of 10 Below trying to trade on Five Below's good name. Five Below sells things for five dollars or less, where 10 Below refers to the way the ice cream shops make their product, including dropping the temperature to minus-ten degrees. There's just not synergy between the names here at all. In the filing (below), Five Below makes much of its sales of candy and ice cream at its stores, except that I can't find ice cream listed in this section on its website and the candy referenced is merely other brands being sold there.
And IP attorneys looking through all of this seem to agree.
"It seems to me that you have a very large company pounding its chest and trying to intimidate a smaller company," says Flaster Greenberg intellectual property attorney Jordan LaVine, whose clients include Martha Stewart and The New York Times. "This is a classic example of trademark bullying. It's an unfortunate situation for a smaller company that might not have the money to defend itself."
Plus, 10 Below first opened in New York City in 2015, when Five Below already had a presence there, but Five Below didn't take them to court until more than two years later.
"They should have taken action a lot sooner than the end of 2017," says LaVine.
In other words, this is pretty much ticking off every checkbox for how to lose a trademark bullying lawsuit. It's enough to wonder whether all of this came down to 10 Below opening a location near Five Below's company HQ in Philadelphia and this is all coming from executives that noticed and went on an ego trip. Regardless, this will hopefully be quickly laughed out of court.
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Filed Under: consumer confusion, ice cream, novelty store, trademark
Companies: 10 below, 10below, five below
Reader Comments
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Not Low Enough
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Re: Not Low Enough
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Re:
Ten below, on the other hand, could be either. Too bad it's not 40 below.
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Is this where Bacardi need to step in with their trademark for "42 Below" and tell Five Below to shut the $#!@ up?
(Yes, I know it's vodka vs retail stores, but that sort of common sense hasn't stopped this sort of thing before.)
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Look Out Below
Evidently the remote has a "launch trademark lawsuit" button. Hence the level of knowledge and ethics of thier legal representation.
I had the IMDB page open, so I did a quick search for "below." And looked only at entries with [number] below.
Companies:
9 Levels Below FX
Fifteen Below Zero
30 Below Entertainment
40 Below Films
40 Below Productions Inc.
42 Below
54 Below
110 Below Productions
Less relevant: show titles
Below Zero (1925) (Short)
Below Zero (2008) (TV Episode)
Below Zero (2009) (TV Episode)
Below 0° (2017) (Short)
Three Below Zero (1998)
3 Below (2005) (Video)
3 Below (2018) (TV Series)
6 Below (2016)
6 Below (2017)
7 Below (2012)
Eight Below (2006)
20 Ft Below
21 Below (2009)
Below 22 Degrees (2014) (Short)
30 Below (in development)
Forty Below (2010) (Short)
48 Below (2010)
That's just one industry. No, you do not get exclusive use of an entire naming convention across all industries.
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Re: Look Out Below
original title:
Vingt mille lieues sous les mers - Jules Verne,
published between 1869 to 1870
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vingt_mille_lieues_sous_les_mers
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
(translated title, published in 1872)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Sea
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Re: Look Out Below
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This is a pointless waste of cash, you will not win, the crying exec will not be happy. Dump both of them before they tell you they can totes win this on appeal.
You have 600 locations and you think 5 ice cream shops represent a threat to your brand? Seriously? Have you been tested for lead exposure? The biggest damage out of this is going to be the countless stories covering the trademark bully threatening a tiny ice cream chain where there is no hope of confusion in the market place (unless you are a lawyer retained by 5 Below who gets paid win or lose, but bringing a case means you get paid more).
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You'd think...
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Thar she ⒷⒺⓁⓄⓌⓈ‼ ™
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Amicable solution
You seem to be confused that degrees are the same as dollars. I can assure you they are not.
However I have a proposal that should clear up that confusion. I will change my name to 5 Dollars Below and you change your name to Ten Degrees Below. Simple. I look forward to you agreement.
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Re: Amicable solution
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Maybe we should just report all temperatures in Kelvin to make sure nobody violates their TM and causes "irreparable harm" to their company image.
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Re:
The USA would have to use Rankine, just to be different.
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I should start
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There is nothing similar between these two stores and you can't trademark "below" because it's a generic, common, word used all the time. What are they going to do next? Sue Disney for making the movie "Eight Below"?
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the we-sell-food-too argument
Going after these guys for infringement is way beyond the pale.
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Scooped by an ice cream shop!
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Guess where I am going after work? It ain't 5 below.
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Dangle that participle!
So, which case was it that made you eat your hands in the first place so that this one would cause you to throw them up?
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Careful!
You're tempting fate here. Filing below is awfully, awfully close to Five Below. The fact that they are four consecutive words in a single sentence is likely to cause consumer confusion.
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Shit. They'll be coming for 2 Below next.
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Who are the lawyers who take these cases
1) Do they not know copyright/ trademark law? If not, why are they taking on cases if they don't know the relevant laws?
2) Do they know the law and are ignoring it just to take the client's money? Is this an ethics violation?
Either way, these lawyers should be called out and have their bar association/ license reviewed.
If more lawyers learn that their licenses could be revoked for starting dumb lawsuits like this, then maybe there would be less bullying.
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Andrei Mincov
Founder and CEO of Trademark Factory® / https://trademarkfactory.com, the only firm in the world that offers trademarking services with a predictable, guaranteed result, for a predictable, guaranteed budget. We can help you register your trademarks with a free comprehensive trademark search, for a single all-inclusive flat fee, with a 100% money-back guarantee.
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They're only throwing a fit because they are raising prices on things in the store above $5. It's no longer just everything $5 and below. They were probably already planning to raise their prices and change their name to 10 Below before the ice cream company beat them to it and took the name.
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