The Supreme Court has handed down massive rulings lately. More are on the way.
And Justice Clarence Thomas can’t believe the case that just hit his desk.
There’s certainly a lot going on in the world that deserves serious attention from Americans.
A former U.S. President in Donald Trump potentially being indicted by a sham prosecution is one of those things that deserves attention.
But it’s nice to step back a little bit and read about something a little more on the funny side of life.
This legal case that just reached the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court is definitely humorous, to say the least.
You see, if you have a dog or cat, you may have noticed that dog toy companies have started creating toys for pets that look like popular items that their owners would use.
One company out of Phoenix, Arizona, called VIP Products, has started manufacturing and selling dog toys that look like a bottle of whiskey.
But not just any ol’ bottle of whiskey.
No, one glance at the dog toy and you can see that it was made to look like a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey – one of the most popular whiskeys in the world.
This has Jack Daniels pretty upset, as they argue that the dog toy looking so similar to their famous bottles of whiskey is harming their reputation in a variety of ways.
They say that the dog toy infringes on the trademark they have on their whiskey, and also confuses customers, in turn harming the popular reputation that Jack Daniels has created with consumers.
Well, how can the simple dog toy be harming their reputation? We’re glad you asked.
On a traditional bottle of Jack Daniels, you’ll see the 40% alcohol label right on the front of the bottle. The dog toy, however, replaces that with a label that says “43% poo” and “100% smelly.”
NPR reports:
Jack Daniel’s, the famous Tennessee whiskey company, is trying to stop the production and marketing of a chewy dog toy called Bad Spaniels. The toy, shaped and decorated like a Jack Daniel’s bottle, features a spaniel and the name “Bad Spaniels” on the label instead of the iconic Jack Daniel’s name. And instead of promising 40% alcohol by volume, it promises “43% poo by volume, 100% smelly.”
It’s quite obvious that the designers of the dog toy were trying to copy that famous Jack Daniels look.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve violated any trademark laws in doing so.
The best argument that Jack Daniels has is that the dog toy is somehow obviously inflammatory to the Jack Daniels product, thus causing harm to their brand and causing a drop in sales.
But even that argument is pretty weak.
Jack Daniels has been around for more than 150 years, and a simple dog toy isn’t going to impact the sales of Jack Daniels in any measurable way.
When someone wants some whiskey in a cola at a bar, they’ll always ask for a “Jack-in-coke”. No dog toy is going to change that.
Jack Daniels should probably take a shot or two of their own whiskey to calm down and let this whole thing go.
They’ll definitely need a hard drink after they realize how many millions of dollars they’ve wasted on a legal case being taken all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court over a silly dog toy…
… a case that they’ll like lose as well.
They better hope that Clarence Thomas and the other Justices are for some reason massive Jack Daniels fans.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
