← Back to context

Comment by mattmaroon

3 days ago

Last year in my area, a food truck decided to call itself Leggo My Egg Roll, and obvious play on Eggo waffles tagline.

Kellogg sent them a cease and desist, they decided to ignore it. Kellogg then offered to pay them to rebrand, they still wouldn’t.

They then sued for $15 million.

65 comments

mattmaroon

Reply
jakereps  3 days ago

My old local brewery had a Leggo My Ego[1] beer they also were served a cease and desist by Kellogg over... they still make it, it's just now called the Unlawful Waffle[2] which is a bit funnier if you happen to know the lore/reason.

1. https://untappd.com/b/arizona-wilderness-brewing-co-leggo-my...

2. https://untappd.com/b/arizona-wilderness-brewing-co-unlawful...

  • stogot  3 days ago

    Funny story but the taste scores don’t look to great. Do you like it?

    • jakereps  2 days ago

      It’s one of those types you have to be the person that likes that style. It’s my friends favorite rotator but I think it’s a decent try-it-once beer, that is only around for a little while at a time.

      The brewery itself though is one of my favorites to this day with, in my opinion, the best food I've ever encountered at something that identifies itself first as a "brewery." I don't visit the area without making a stop there.

      1 reply →

clarkmoody  3 days ago

...and then what happened?

ikidd  3 days ago

[flagged]

  • NewsaHackO  3 days ago

    It actually looks like they were pretty reasonable here, as they offered money for the company to help rebrand even though they were clearly infringing on their copyright. Of course, there are three sides to every story.

    • Dylan16807  3 days ago

      Clearly infringing on what? Do they have "leggo my eggo" itself trademarked? And is it really reasonable to think there's consumer confusion between a waffle and an egg roll that isn't using the word "eggo"?

      I would say they're clearly not infringing on any plain "eggo" trademark.

      22 replies →

  • echelon  3 days ago

    It's US law.

    If Kellogg doesn't defend their trademark, they lose it.

    An amicable middle ground might be for Kellogg to let the business purchase rights for $1, but if that happened it would open up a flood of this.

    Kellogg has so much money in that brand recognition, they'd lose far more than $15 million if it became a generic slogan. The $15 million is a token amount to get the small business to abandon its use. Kellogg doesn't want to litigate. They tried several times not to litigate.

    I'm sure Kellogg would be happy to pay the business more than the cost of repainting their truck, buying some marketing materials, pay for the trouble, etc. It's easy good will press for Kellogg and the business gets a funny story and their own marketing anecdote. It's cheaper than litigation, too.

    • 8note  3 days ago

      this isnt a great law though.

      a non competing pun ahould have similar carve outs to fair use, to save both the trademark owner, jokester, and courts a bunch of time and money.

      3 replies →

    • izacus  3 days ago

      Did Kellogg actual win according to this supposed law you cite? Did they prove that their trademark was used?

      Or are you blindly guessing?

      6 replies →

  • bpodgursky  3 days ago

    > The way trademarks work is that if you don't actively defend them you weaken your rights.

    I mean this is the OP sentence, it's not about the food truck, it's about setting a precedent that you don't care, which costs you later when a competing brand starts distributing in a way that can actually confuse consumers.