Cereal Maker Claims Non-Profit's Bird Infringes on "Toucan Sam"

[gunslingingbird]

The Maya Archaeology Initiative is fighting claims by Kellogg North America that a bird depicted in MAI's logo is too similar to "Toucan Sam," the fictional spokesbird for Froot Loops cereal.

MAI, a non-profit that supports education for Guatemalan children (as well as archaeology), got a cease-and-desist letter from Kellogg's lawyers in July saying that Kellogg was concerned about an application to use the logo in connection with clothing, given that Sam also appears on clothing. Kellogg said it was also concerned about the use of "Mayan imagery" in the mark, saying that Sam also sometimes appeared in a similar setting.

Seriously?!? These fucking corporate cocksuckers at Kellogg's are copyrighting the image of a toucan?!? Maybe we should genetically re-engineer the fucking bird so it doesn't infringe on their copyright. It's a fucking non-profit organization that teaches kids in fucking Guatemala! It's bad enough that the kids are from Guatemala, now you're gonna sue the group that's trying to educate them? Kellogg's, fuck you and your board members, and shove your fruity fucking toucan up your corporate ass!

Story

 

[squallumz]

ehh, doesnt look like sam all that much. id let that one slide.

 

[STDiva]

HA. That's fucking ridiculous.

 

[LukeEl]

Does that mean Romanian people can sue the makers of Count Chocula as well? For disgracing a national hero like him.

 

[Member442]

That's messed up.

 

[Jane Burgess]

Yeah they went a bit far on this issue.

 

[KillTheIndustry]

1. They don't look at all alike.
2. They don't own the rights to use a bird, and MAI's looks more like a real toucan than Sam does.
3. If they aren't making money off the design, I don't think they can get anything, unless they can prove the MAI bird is somehow making Kellogg's lose money.

 

[John_8581]

Mayan imagery?? :wtf: -- don't toucans live in natural suroundings, i.e. Central and Latin America?? Countries like, ummmm.... Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Ahhh, duh??

It's really truly stupid and asinine.

Hey I guarantee you all that the first federal judge assigned to this in the trial court will throw this lawsuit out in the Sixth Circuit. With no appeal by Kelloggs.

 

[Legzman]

Kellogg's, fuck you and your board members, and shove your fruity fucking toucan up your corporate ass!

same could be said for 100% of the corporations in the world. All any of them give a fuck about is their money and their fucking image. To hell with everything else!

 

[Moonchild22]

...and I thought this was ridiculous when it happened:

In 2000, the World Wide Fund for Nature sued the World Wrestling Federation (now named WWE) for unfair trade practices. Both parties had shared the initials "WWF" since 1979. The conservation organization claimed that the wrestling company had violated a 1994 agreement regarding international use of the WWF initials.

On August 10, 2001, an English court ruled in favour of the World Wide Fund for Nature. The World Wrestling Federation filed an appeal in October 2001. However, on May 5, 2002, the World Wrestling Federation changed its Web address from WWF.com to WWE.com, and replaced every "WWF" reference on the existing site with "WWE", as a prelude to changing the company's name to "World Wrestling Entertainment." Its stock ticker also switched from WWF to WWE.

Abandonment of the initialism did not end the two organizations' legal conflict. Later in 2002, the World Wide Fund for Nature petitioned the court for $360 million in damages, but was not successful. A subsequent request to overturn by the World Wide Fund for Nature was dismissed by the English Court of Appeals on June 28, 2007. In 2003, World Wrestling Entertainment won a limited decision which permitted them to continue marketing certain pre-existing products with the abandoned WWF logo. However, WWE was mandated to issue newly branded merchandise such as apparel, action figures, video games, and DVDs with the "WWF" initials. Additionally, the court order required the company to remove both auditory and visual references to "WWF" in its library of video footage outside of the United Kingdom.