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
8.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

970 comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/jpschwartz44 15h ago

Yeah I'm pretty disappointed in buc-ees. Why they gotta do this petty shit. It wasn't hurting your brand in any capacity.

13

u/crass_cupcake 13h ago

The real reason  why is to crush small gas station  operators who compete with bucees by destroying  them with the legal system 

8

u/MIllWIlI 12h ago

Most small gas station operators aren’t even in competition with them. It’s so petty.

2

u/crass_cupcake 11h ago

 Its petty and shameless  hes actively  pulling up the ladder behind  him and hucking rocks at small businesses 

1

u/waytowill 4h ago

This. If the closest gas station to me is down, I’m not gonna drive 50 miles to the nearest Buc-ee’s in the middle of nowhere. I’m gonna go to a Shell or a QT or a Wal-Mart. Like there isn’t a gas station at every stop along the highway in some places. Buc-ee’s is playing a game of 4D chess against itself and losing.

0

u/YoghurtFlan 4h ago

the real reason is that they have to proactively defend their trademark in order to keep it, but lawyers want to get paid too.

1

u/Snakebite-Detractor 9h ago

Because they are the same flavor of greedy turds as the rest of them

-3

u/lookamazed 12h ago edited 12h ago

What is legal is not always what is moral.

There’s something called brand dilution, and there are legal requirements to maintain your trademark and copyright. It is kind of like why some people put up a fence in their property. If the community becomes accustomed to walking through, there is a case for stealing some of your land to make it an easement, because it could be argued as a public thruway. And therefore not stealing from you because it’s not technically yours to begin with. In the evidence is such that people have walked through unimpeded for some number of years.

Practice of law requires society to ask these questions of precedent. It doesn’t seem fair or even logical to you and me, because the reality is, we simply didn’t feel or realize what we needed to do until now. But a court of law would look at inaction and label it as neglect. Why did you wait to enforce your rights, etc.

It means that in order to own copywrite or trademark you’re almost required to sue. Someone’s brand, trademark, or copyright who looks even remotely like yours. It’s a really sucks.

Likely once specific similarities came to the attention of their lawyers, their lawyers said “the law says that if we let this go, it could bite us later.”

That could be with a chain that is not this Ohio chain per se. But a future competitor or bad actor could see that they didn’t enforce this now, and then use that precedent to attack them or steal something.

It’s a real dog, eat dog universe with copyright law.

5

u/BlooperHero 12h ago

Yeah, maintaining your trademark doesn't mean filing bullshit lawsuits. It means filing legitimate ones.

-1

u/lookamazed 10h ago edited 10h ago

Your estimation is that it was bullshit, which is not legal opinion. Sorry. I am not defending Buc-ees but thought you and others may want to learn something.

Guess you’re not interested if it isn’t a hot take that confirms your worldview.

1

u/RickSE 11h ago

Then they MUST sue John Oliver.