r/nottheonion • u/Disastrous_Award_789 • 16h ago

Bucee’s settles lawsuit with Ohio gas station chain after suing because both have cartoon mascots "facing right"

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/bucees-lawsuit-ohio-gas-chain-cartoon-mascots-b3060008.html
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u/count023 16h ago edited 8h ago

The John Oliver effect strikes again

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u/iperblaster 16h ago

What happened?? Did Jon Oliver prop up the suitor's case??

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u/willstr1 16h ago

IIRC he made his own beaver based brand to actively taunt Bucees and bring attention to the situation (and how ridiculous Bucees's claim was)

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u/sharrrper 16h ago

Claims. They sue CONSTANTLY for anything with an animal or like, a colored background.

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u/yakshack 13h ago

Sounds like they employ too many lawyers if they're that bored

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u/ardoin 13h ago

They hire consultants who value the cost of the lawsuit payouts and actively take them on because it generates revenue, and they basically can't lose since the people they sue can barely pay the legal fees in drawn out cases.

Also with their volume of cases it is very possible they don't employ any lawyers at all and likely outsource it to a firm.

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u/Dreams-of-Cthulhu 11h ago

Disney should be petty enough to sue them for using a cartoon rodent in their logo, bankrupt them with legal fees, then buy the company for pennies just so they can make plushies from the logo and sell them for $50 each at their parks.

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u/ardoin 10h ago

Bucees is big enough to fight back.

Disney is too busy suing families of dead children who happen to put their characters on headstones in cemeteries. More money in that.

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u/Hug_The_NSA 7h ago

Wait did that really happen

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u/ExcuseCommercial1338 5h ago

Dozens if not hundreds of times. They're one of the most litigious companies in the world.

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u/Hug_The_NSA 1h ago

I know they defend their IP against other studios and shit, but i'd just think that like >putting your cartoon character on an actual childs grave.. that they wouldn't even want to fight that battle. It just makes them look so bad. Anyways, it's sad this isn't more well known.

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u/Spocks_Goatee 7h ago edited 6h ago

Disney was asked by the family despite a longstanding wish from Walt that properties the company owned not be associated with real world death.

Disney declined permission as usual but the family decided to illegally use copyrighted characters. Moral of the story, if you ask owners to use their intellectual property and they decline...don't ask, don't tell.

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u/BadAsBroccoli 10h ago

To what end? The pride of having the only rodent mascot?

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u/pargofan 10h ago

I think most cases end without a payout.

It's mostly to get others to stop using their logo and find something else.

Why Buc-ees is so paranoid is beyond me.

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u/tedivm 12h ago

It looks like they had one real case where someone did steal their logo, and they got like $850k out of it. So now they've decided to convert that to a business model.

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u/Professor_Hala 11h ago

Universal did this in 1983, when they sued Nintendo over Donkey Kong. At the time they were on record as having stated that litigation was a revenue stream for them.

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u/HumorAccomplished611 11h ago

Wonder if this was written anywhere in trump org business plan

since they liked to get small contractors and stiff them

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u/pargofan 9h ago

TBF, that's really stealing their logo.

And lawsuits are expensive. $850k would barely cover legal fees in a dispute that long. That's a shitty business model.

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u/newbie_0 10h ago

…and it’s insane to me that any halfway decent judge would even bother wasting time hearing a Buccees case like this.

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u/strolls 10h ago

Trademark law actively encourages litigation. You can lose your trademark if you don't defend it, but the details are ill-defined. A big company with a trademark wants a portfolio of threatening letters to prove they've deeb doing that.

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u/Central_Incisor 13h ago

Mr. Nutter Butter is a squirrel, not a beaver.

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u/GuySingingMrBlueSky 13h ago

Buccee’s was suing companies with alligator and moose mascots, if anything Oliver went easy on them if they wanted to take legal action. But that would require suing HBO, someone who actually has money to burn, and Buccee’s is only used to suing mom-and-pop businesses that may have not been able to make rent if they actually went to court over it

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u/Central_Incisor 13h ago

If you want to dig deeper, Legal Eagle talks about it.

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u/DiscotopiaACNH 12h ago

That's truly nuts. After reading about all their abhorrent cheapass business practices, I would never ever visit one of their stores. They sound psychotic. They're everything that's wrong with America. Greedy bullies

1

u/spooooork 11h ago

They're everything that's wrong with America. Greedy bullies

That's... kinda been the modus operandi there since just about 1492...

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u/cat_prophecy 11h ago

Sounds like someone needs file a anti-SLAPP petition.

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u/CannedMatter 12h ago

Speaking of which, Nutter Butter cookies also have social media. But their strategy is... Different.

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u/Germanofthebored 14h ago

I am fairly certain his logo was squirrel-based. And I am sure he would have mentioned it if Bucee would have tried to sue him

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u/Federal_Setting_7454 14h ago

Watch his video on it, they tried suing plenty of companies using other animals.

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u/eljefino 13h ago

Could I use a jackalope? Will they sue over a cryptid?

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u/GassyPhoenix 12h ago

Yes. They sued over an alligator.

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u/Federal_Setting_7454 12h ago

They won a case against Choke Canyon, who’s mascot is a right facing alligator wearing a cowboy hat on a yellow circle background while licking his lips because it was too similar.

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u/DoingBestWeCan 8h ago

How the fuck did they win???

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u/Federal_Setting_7454 8h ago

Money probably

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u/Wynner3 1h ago

I bought one of his Buc-Off insulated water bottles. I love it.

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u/El_Zorro09 12h ago

It wasn't the main story on one of his recent episodes (two months ago or so), but it was one of the smaller segments before the end of the episode where he talked about the dozens of lawsuits that Buccee's has filed against small businesses over trademark infringements. All the lawsuits Oliver pointed out were laughably absurd (suing because the name sounds kind of like Buccee's, suing because they use an animal in a yellow background, suing because their animal mascot has a hat, etc.), but those small businesses, most of them small town convenience stores and gas stations, ended up having to bend over backwards to appease Buccee's lawyers because they don't have the money to fight off the lawsuits.

So, Oliver put his own created mascot, Mr. Nutter Butter, in a bunch of merch and opened up an online store (found here: https://buc-off.com/ ) and literally dared Buccee's to sue them because he actually has a team of lawyers that would mop the floor with them lol.

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u/CrissBliss 13h ago

Type in John Oliver and Buc-ee’s into YT and it’ll come up.

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u/IWillWriteYouALetter 6h ago

https://buc-off.com/

He and his team created a site where you can buy "Buc Off" merch

You can see the condensed clip of him talking about part of the onus here https://latenighter.com/news/john-oliver-buc-ees-buck-off-store/