Courts

This Toy Company May Have Just Barked Up The Wrong Whiskey-Saturated Tree

Bad boy!

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Times in IP have been ruff.

As a lawyer, I get the qualitative feeling many of you can use a good drink. I get the quantitative feeling too — alcoholism runs rampant within the profession. On occasion, lawyers dabbling in their fake share of whisk(e)y is business rather than pleasure. This is one of those times. From SCOTUSblog:

The court agreed on Monday to hear a dispute between the maker of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and a company that manufacturers dog toys resembling the Tennessee distillery’s iconic bottle.

Jack Daniel’s says the plastic toys are tarnishing its brand and violating its federal trademark rights. On the toys’ labels, the name “Jack Daniel’s” is replaced with “Bad Spaniels,” and the words “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” are replaced with “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet.” While the whiskey bottle notes that it is 40% alcohol by volume, the toys say they are “43% Poo by Vol.” and “100% Smelly.”

Look, man. I don’t know what demographic data Jack and them have access to, but I highly doubt that this conversation has ever happened:

Bar Patron 1: Hey Steve, why’d you switch to drinking Bulleit ? You always struck me as a Jack kinda guy.

Bar Patron 2 (aka Steve): Yeah, man. I was cool knowing that the company standard is based off of a recipe that was stolen from an enslaved person, but I draw the line at being associated with doggy toys. A man’s got to have standards, right Barry?

Bar Patron 1 (who we now know based on context clues is named Barry): Yeah, man. You’ve gotta draw the line somewhere.

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The maker of the toys, Arizona-based VIP Products, says they are humorous parodies entitled to First Amendment protection. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed, prompting Jack Daniel’s to seek Supreme Court review.

For those intently following the right to spoof, the case name is Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC and will be brought before the court around February or March. Outcomes aside, I really hope that VIP invests in counsel with a good sense of humor on their hands. Those bastards better have the now obligatory The Onion brief somewhere in the works cited too.

Justices Fetch New Case On Trademark Law And Parody [SCOTUSblog]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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