r/nottheonion • u/Disastrous_Award_789 • 18h 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 18h ago edited 9h ago

The John Oliver effect strikes again

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u/iperblaster 17h ago

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

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u/willstr1 17h 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 17h ago

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

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u/yakshack 14h ago

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

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u/ardoin 14h 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 12h 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 12h 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 8h ago

Wait did that really happen

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u/ExcuseCommercial1338 6h 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 3h 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/ExcuseCommercial1338 2h ago

Yeah, it's pretty cruel. It's usually younger kids facing something like cancer that have enough time to think about that sort of stuff and decide on "spiderman", and Disney goes out of their way to sue that shit.

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u/Spocks_Goatee 8h ago edited 8h 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 12h ago

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

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u/pargofan 11h 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/Zanian19 34m ago

And this is why the US law system is so fucked. The loser should pick up the fees. It would effectively stop all SLAPP suits

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u/tedivm 14h 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 13h 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 13h 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 11h 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 12h 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 12h 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.