Two Georgia Sausage Companies Battle Over Trademarked Logos That Aren't Particularly Similar
from the sausage-party dept
We see a lot of dumb trademark lawsuits here at Techdirt, but the most frustrating of them is always those that assert similarities in trade dress when it's plainly obvious that no such similarities exist. Even when afforded the greatest leeway for interpretation, there are times when one company will complain about the branding of another company that simply leaves you scratching your head.
A lawsuit filed by Stripling's General Store against Carroll's Sausage & Country Store is an exmaple of this.
Stripling’s General Store is suing Carroll’s Sausage & Country Store because it was using a “confusingly similar mark” to advertise its goods, according to the complaint filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.
The general store also alleges unfair competition, false designation of origin and injury to its reputation.
Look, I could stretch this post out a bit with detailed language of what's involved, but the fact is that Stripling is complaining that its logo and that of Carroll's are too similar so as to mislead the public as to the origin of each's products. Worth noting here is that Stripling fired off multiple C&Ds without receiving a response and that Carroll's has taken no action to change its branding. Also notable is that Stripling is asking for all profits Carroll's received while using this trade dress.
And, now, for the branding in quesiton.
It should be obvious just how different these logos are and, more importantly, how little confusion they are likely to create. After all, the only real similarity that is somewhat unique is the use of an image of a pig on each. The counter to that as an argument for uniqueness and confusion is: these are sausage companies. It would be odd if they didn't use images of pigs in their logos. Beyond that, those images are different, as are the color schemes, the verbage, and the names of each source of goods on both logos, which are prominently displayed in both cases. To suggest anyone is going to be confused by any of this is more than a bit crazy.
But, with the explosion in permission culture in American business, we've now reached a point where sausage companies are fighting over the right to use the image of a pig in their logos. Great job, everyone!
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Filed Under: georgia, logos, pigs, sausage, trademark
Companies: carroll's sausage and country store, stripling's general store
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Obvious
At least the lawyers will eat well.
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Re: Obvious
It'd be a shame to waste all that bacon, y'know?
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Re: Obvious
There is a German lemonade company called "Fritz Cola" and they did not have the money for trademark lawyers and research. Their logo is a picture of the two founders since they considered it unlikely for that to clash with preexisting logos.
But then the facial details of those two pigs are also different and apparently that did not help.
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Re: Re: Obvious
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Re: Obvious
https://nettlessausage.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Nettles-Logo-Web-2.png
http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/images/logos_odd_sizes/williams_sausage_logo_260x91.jpg
https://www.hillmeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/hills-premium-meats-logo.png
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Typical IP battle
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what about that circular outline???
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Re: what about that circular outline???
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the pigs need to lawyer up
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Re: the pigs need to lawyer up
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I never sausage a thing!!!!
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Anybody using any of these letters in commerce now is pwned by me.
Apple, I suggest you give me half of your cash on had if you wish to avoid my iWraith.
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Re:
All prior art are lies meant to deceive the court and will fall under RICOLIBELSLANDER because you are using international commerce to reduce my claims.
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'We at Company X firmly believe that our customers are idiots.'
This is why you keep your lawyers on a tight leash, so they avoiding wasting your money and making you look like legal thugs that are either blind and/or idiots.
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Re:
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A Pig is Pretty Much Required in a Sausage Label
The same holds for barbecue joints. The picture of the pig, often in an apron, is pretty standard in the business. People driving in unfamiliar territory recognize that image as signifying not a particular vendor but a particular class of vendor. You can write the name of the joint in the apron, or on the pig's cap, to make a logo. It's still a fairly weak mark, erase the name and you are back to identifying the type of goods.
Stripling's loses on that basis, so we do not even get to the question of why the two pigs do not look alike.
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Re: A Pig is Pretty Much Required in a Sausage Label
Not "designate" but "insinuate". I was sort of annoyed to figure out that the dominant component of most "calf liver sausage" by weight is pig (liver sausage is great for camouflaging medication to cats but cats should not eat pork).
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Re: A Pig is Pretty Much Required in a Sausage Label
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Re: Re: A Pig is Pretty Much Required in a Sausage Label
Because if you put other types of meat in there, it is not good sausage. It is just a poor imitation, fit mostly to serve to inmates in Yankee prisons.
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Re: A Pig is Pretty Much Required in a Sausage Label
I'd say it would be like trying to establish that two barbecue companies couldn't both use flames in their respective logos.
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Re:
"What brand of sausage should I buy?" "Oh come on, you know the one. Stripling's, the one that has a pig on its label. Don't ask me ever again."
At the store: "Which was it again? Ah, the one with the pig."
30 years later: "I took out the garbage. Why are there Carrol's sausage peels?"
30 years worth of profit in damage. Perfectly reasonable. Clearly malicious intent to deceive, so this should actually be tripled.
Coming up next: suing the police station because of polluting the pig trade dress.
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Pigs in Logos
That would almost sound like a punchline, if it weren't so actually true in case...and potentially metaphorically true in so many others, e.g., MPAA, RIAA, Comcast, et al.
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Re: Pigs in Logos
Or NASA. You know, because of pigs in space.
Particularly since they made space circular or something after Einstein told them to just stop worrying and put the center anywhere. I'm fuzzy about the details but that's Heisenberg and Einstein did not like quantum theory even though he got his Nobel for it.
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Re: Re: Pigs in Logos
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Re:
I'll see myself out.
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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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A Pig is Pretty Much Required in a Sausage Label
That is how you designate the real product, as opposed to beef or chicken sausage surrogate. Customers are expecting a picture of a pig.
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