Not one of the above design or wordmarks would appear to be genuine potential infringement upon Toucan Sam, or any of Kellogg’s other Froot Loops associated marks. The above marks feature toucans (or even just rhyme with the word toucan) — but the similarities end there.

This is not to say that some of Kellog’s trademark prosecutions have not been perfectly legitimate. For instance, the logo for Froot’s Really Good Smoothies features a toucan that looks nothing like Sam. But the combination of ‘Froot’ and a toucan could genuinely invoke thoughts of Froot Loops in consumers’ minds.

And TwoCan Partners, LLC, a restaurant services company, has an image that also bears at least a superficial resemblance to Toucan Sam.

Other than those two, however, none of the challenged marks look as if they may really be infringements under the Lanham Act. And yet, the overwhelming majority of the above marks were abandoned by their owners when threatened with litigation by Kellogg’s. In short, Kellogg’s has improperly used the trademark system to artificially ensure that almost every logo with a toucan in it belongs to Kellogg’s.

But legally, Kellogg’s doesn’t have a leg to stand on. When Kellogg’s picks these fights, it is not relying on the accuracy of its reading of the law, but rather it is counting on its size and entrenched legal resources to outweigh the strength of its opponents legal arguments. Even though legal precedent is solidly against it, Kellogg’s has, for two decades, maintained a steady persecution of all other businesses whose names or logos reference members of family Ramphastidae.

That Kellogg’s legal arguments are bunk is not mere speculation. The Sixth Circuit has already held that Kellogg’s overreaching claims of infringement are legally unsupported. In 2003, Kellogg’s tried to block a trademark registration by Toucan Golf, a golfing equipment company. The court found that Kellogg’s opposition to the rival toucan mark was unjustified, as “confusion [between the marks] was highly unlikely, principally because Kellogg is in the business of selling cereal, whereas TGI is in the business of selling putters.” Kellogg Co. v. Toucan Golf, Inc., 337 F.3d 616, 620 (6th Cir. 2003). The court did agree that Kellogg’s had “establish[ed] that Toucan Sam is visually recognizable by an overwhelming cross-section of American consumers. Coupling that with his distinctiveness, Toucan Sam is a very strong mark.” But then Kellog tried to argue that its toucan mark went so far as to encompass golf equipment, on the basis of a 1982 commercial:

Kellogg asserts before this Court that it has sufficiently entered the golf equipment industry. In support of this claim, Kellogg presents a catalog, wherein it offers for sale golf balls and golf shirts on which is imprinted the picture of Toucan Sam. Moreover, Kellogg has presented a mass-marketed 1982 animated television advertisement wherein Toucan Sam is portrayed soliciting his Froot Loops on a golf course, and interacting with a golf-playing bear. Kellogg claims these materials indicate that the Toucan Sam marks are related not only to the manufacture of breakfast cereal, but to the golf equipment industry as well.

The court promptly told Kellogg to STFU: “Kellogg has not cornered the market on all potential uses of the common bird name ‘toucan’ in commerce, only on uses of ‘Toucan Sam.'”

Toucan Golf's GolfBird vs. Toucan Sam

Not only are other uses of the wordmark ‘toucan’ not a likely source of confusion for Froot Loops, but there is also no Lanham Act violation where another product happens to have a design mark with a toucan in it. The Sixth Circuit held, with respect to the GolfBird logo,

“GolfBird resembles a real toucan. She has the look and proportions of a toucan that one would encounter in the wild. Toucan Sam is anthropomorphic, with a discolored, misshaped beak. His body type is not the same as that of a real toucan; and he smiles and has several other human features. We therefore find no similarity between Toucan Sam and GolfBird.”

Everything from the Toucan Golf case sounds extremely familiar to Kellogg’s current claims against MAI, in which Kellogg asserts that the Mayan imagery of the MAI logo increases the confusion, because Toucan Sam frequently appears with Mayan imagery. As with the claims in Toucan Golf that Toucan Sam is associaterd with golf clubs, Kellogg’s claims that Toucan Sam is associated by consumers with Mayan imagery are nothing more than invented bullshit. Worse still, the only “Mayan imagery” Toucan Sam has ever walked in front of is fairly offensive:

[MAI’s attorney, Mott] said she had looked at Kellogg’s websites in an effort to explore this claim. The only imagery she could find that was even “vaguely Mayan,” she said, was on the Froot Loops site, which includes a number of “Adventure” games set in various locales. Generic pyramids do appear in one of those, she noted (this one), but there doesn’t appear to be anything distinctively Mayan about them. (Unless the Mayans put Froot Loops on their pyramids, I think she has to be right. Even if they did, that might pose other problems for Kellogg’s claim.) Worse, the only quasi-Maya depicted there is not depicted favorably:

“Disturbingly, the villain in this Kellogg Adventure and its related games — and the only character who is of color [other than the birds] — is a ‘witch doctor’ with a cackling screech. Apparently, he is supposed to be a Maya. At best, this is culturally insensitive. I would characterize it as a demeaning caricature of an advanced and ancient civilization about which your game developers know nothing.”

Kellogg then promptly removed the video, saying “As a company long committed to diversity and inclusion and responsible marketing, Kellogg takes this concern very seriously.” Niiiice, Kellogg’s. Way to rely on the old “I’m-sorry-if-you-were-offended” non-apology, for explaining your use of witch doctors in children’s advertising.

Sadly, despite the baselessness of Kellogg’s claims, MAI has little choice but to attempt to settle with Kellogg’s, and relinquish its legal right to continued use of its logo. That’s because actually defending against Kellogg’s frivolous claims will easily cost north of $25,000, which is a lot for a tiny non-profit to spend on defending a principle. Even though Kellogg’s claims are legally and factually unsupportable, it will probably succeed in forcing MAI to stand down.

Looking over Kellogg’s trademark prosecution record, the only conclusion one can draw is that Kellogg’s attorneys are a bunch of bullies. Moreover, Kellogg’s longstanding pattern of abuse and intimidation when it comes to trademark litigation demonstrates that it is a company policy to prosecute all other uses of toucan in commerce, regardless of the fact that a circuit court has already soundly rejected their fanciful claims to the contrary. But despite Kellogg’s trigger happy litigation tactics, Kellogg’s indisputably does not have a right to exclude all others from using depictions of toucans in commerce — and Kellogg’s attempts to enforce such a nonexistent right ought to get them sanctioned by the court the next time they are dumb enough to try and bring a Toucan Sam infringement claim to trial.

Update: As of November 4, 2011, Kellogg’s withdrew its opposition to the trademark. Apparently once its scare tactic proved ineffective, Kellogg’s was not willing to try out the strength of its claims on the merits.

-Susan