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from the brrrrrrr dept
Late final 12 months we reviewed a plainly silly trademark lawsuit brought by Dairy Queen, which makes tasty frozen snacks, and W.B. Mason which is a weird mixture of furniture and grocery keep. At issue was the latter’s endeavor to trademark some bottled drinking water it sells beneath the manufacturer “Blizzard Water”. Notably, W.B. Mason had offered drinking water less than that brand because 2010 with out problem and it was only when Dairy Queen caught wind of the trademark application that it decided to sue above the prospective for confusion with its blizzard ice product goods.
If you didn’t study that primary write-up, you are likely now asking yourself why this is a point at all, provided that drinking water and ice cream are extremely significantly not the identical solutions and that the two companies operate in diverse marketplaces. Nicely, according to Dairy Queen’s fit, it sells blizzards as noted, and it also sells Dasani bottled water, therefore there would be shopper confusion.
Fortuitously, in a large choice, the court noticed how foolish that argument was and located in favor of W.B. Mason.
In a 217-page conclusion produced community on Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson identified a lack of evidence that consumers were being perplexed by the Blizzards or that W.B. Mason, an place of work solutions distributor, meant to confuse anyone.
While acknowledging that W.B. Mason, which has two trademarks for Blizzard copy paper, was not a competitor, Dairy Queen claimed individuals may well be confused since its U.S. dining establishments market bottled h2o. But the choose explained the merchandise had “very distinct audience charm,” and co-existed for 11 yrs in spite of evidence that Dairy Queen’s Blizzard had reached “iconic” standing, with U.S. sales achieving $1.1 billion in 2020.
Notably, as section of the information the court uncovered and laid out in its choice, W.B. Mason does not even promote its h2o direct to shoppers. As a substitute, it sells drinking water to be applied in workplace split rooms, as the vast majority of its business is in business home furnishings. On prime of that, the court factors out that Dairy Queen supplied no evidence of any precise buyer confusion that occurred in excess of practically a decade.
“Dairy Queen released no evidence of an actual affiliation among the two merchandise,” Nelson wrote. “If affiliation ended up to happen, in all probability, it would have occurred by now.”
Dairy Queen has made some noises about interesting the ruling, but I doubt that will happen. This entire matter has been a trademark fit nothingburger from the begin.
Filed Under: blizzard, trademark
Organizations: dairy queen, w.b. mason
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