Buc-ee’s chain draws outcry in Ohio for launching fight over a mini mart’s beaver logo

Filed 3d ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Merry Go Slower

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Chris Olszewski · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Buc-ee's, the Texas chain famous for gas pumps and enormous restrooms, sued Beaver's Mini Mart in Beavercreek, Ohio, claiming its beaver logo infringes on the company's branded mascot Bucky. The suit arrived four months after Buc-ee's opened a 74,000-square-foot store nearby, and follows a pattern: the chain has previously gone after a moose, a bear and an alligator logo in other trademark fights.

The backlash has been substantial: a boycott hashtag trended, John Oliver devoted a segment to it complete with parody merchandise, and a GoFundMe for the mini mart's legal costs topped $69,000. Beavercreek's city council passed a unanimous resolution declaring the beaver a permanent part of its 200-year history, and local bakeries and businesses have added beavers to their own logos in solidarity.

Buc-ee's says it tried repeatedly to contact the mart's owner before suing; the owner's public response thanked supporters without addressing the lawsuit's merits. Ohio's governor, who once attended the ribbon-cutting for the new Buc-ee's, called the suit “absurd.”

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

There is a particular genius in spending more on lawyers than the defendant's building is worth, all to protect a mascot from the deeply confusing possibility that a town named Beavercreek might also enjoy beavers. Every corporate press shop insists these actions are regrettable but necessary to protect the brand, which is true only if the brand is best protected by being loathed in Ohio. The chain has now litigated against half a wildlife refuge; at some point the animals stop being infringers and start being witnesses.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Merry Go Slower · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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