Intellectual Property Law

PepsiCo Shines in Gentle Demand Letter to Church

By Michael Atkins

A reader emailed me a photo of her church’s new t-shirt design. It looks like Mountain Dew’s. The church’s slogan? “Do the Pew.” The reader thought something was wrong with borrowing someone else’s logo. She’s got good instincts. The problem, of course, is with dilution by blurring, since it’s not likely anyone would actually think that PepsiCo, Inc., had gotten into the church business. 

PepsiCo rightly objected to this use, and it did so with a lot of class. Rather than jump on the church’s misstep, the company explained why it needed the use to stop:

“The MOUNT OLIVET logo closely resembles PepsiCo, Inc.’s registered MOUNTAIN DEW trademarks in both stylization and color. Such use wrongly trades on the goodwill of our brand and could lead to consumer confusion by creating the impression of a sponsorship or association with MOUNTAIN DEW soft drinks. In addition, by mimicking our famous MOUNTAIN DEW logo and federally-registered DO THE DEW advertising slogan, the distinctiveness of our trademarks are diluted.

“I trust you will not proceed with producing and selling the t-shirts.”

Firm but fair.

Under the circumstances, this is a model cease-and-desist letter. If PepsiCo had acted like a jerk, its letter would find its way into someone’s blog. Even though it didn’t act like a jerk, its letter still found its way into someone’s blog. But this way, PepsiCo comes off as a class act.

Let’s hope the church understands and comes up with an original design for its shirts.

Full post as published by Seattle Trademark Lawyer on July 02, 2008 (boomark / email).