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FWD: Unilever hides info.RE: trademark From: Bill Murray (billmurray2@hotmail.com) Date: Mon Oct 30 2000 - 17:04:45 EST Non-member submission from [vashishi@erols.com] Here is an interesting article regarding a couple of Trademark battles (today Oct 29 Scotland on Sunday). Talks about the Exxon/Kelloggs' Tony the tiger case and the Unilever/Bestfoods Skippy case. The Bestfoods memoes regarding the Skippy trademark penned by Bestfoods lawyers that are in the possession of the SEC discuss the PTO finding AGAINST Rosefield (bought by Bestfoods) and FOR Ms. Tibbetts company Skippy Inc. The memoes also explicitly agree to omit mention of it in papers related to Bestfoods buying Rosefield so that Bestfoods can deny knowledge of the Skippy issue later. Soon we will most likely see the damning Bestfoods memoes themselves up on the internet. Unilever is withholding information regarding Skippy, the SEC investigation, the memoes etc. from not only their stockholders but their bond financiers. Information provably in their hands PRIOR to the Oct. 2, 2000 stockholders meeting from numerous sources. (and information provably in the hands of the PTO's own Anne Chasser) Valerie Darbe (vashishi@erols.com) www.business.scotsman.com/cfm/home/headlines_specific.cfm?headlineid=3942 Grrrreat debate: Tony the Tiger takes time out from selling cereal to find himself at the centre of an increasingly antagonistic corporate cat-fight. By Jim Cruickshank in New York Sunday, 29th October 2000 Scotland on Sunday Claws out as courts try to frame ponder the law of the jungle CARTOON characters are fun for kids but on Wall Street they take them very seriously, especially when a 68-year-old grandmother is preparing to fight a $20bn global corporation in a record breaking dispute over one kids' favourite. And in another case Tony the Tiger, famous for his saying "They're grrrreat ... ", is up against the mighty Exxon Mobile oil giant who has been using the punchy tiger to sell petrol without his owner's consent. When Unilever shareholders met on October 2 to approve the $20.3bn acquisition of Bestfoods, few were aware of a nagging dispute over one of the American company's best-known products, Skippy peanut butter. Joan Crosby Tibbetts, 68, has been in and out of court for the past 20 years trying to prove that Bestfoods stole the name of a famous Depression-era cartoon character created by her father, Percy Crosby. If she wins the case which kicks off at the end of this year the jury award will be the biggest ever in a trademark dispute. Bestfoods claims the case was settled in 1986 when a judge ruled that it had the exclusive right to use the name Skippy on food products. But a judge gave her a small victory last month and has allowed Tibbetts to publish on the internet claims that Bestfoods pirated the name from her father. Percy Crosby's cartoon boy was the Charlie Brown of his day and he made a fortune. But he became increasingly cranky and paranoid. He lost most of his money, his marriage broke up and he tried to commit suicide before he died in 1964. Joan, his daughter, is now trying to re-establish ownership of the Skippy trademark and rebuild the fortune. She won her recent fight against Bestfoods' attempt to purge her website where she has repeated her claims that the trademark was stolen in 1933 by Rosefield Packing, which was later bought by Bestfoods. Yesterday Tibetts said this was now Unilever's problem. "The origins of this go back to the final decision that the US Patent and Trade Mark Office decided in favour of Skippy Inc founded by my father which absolutely prohibited the registration of the Skippy corporate trade name as a federal trade mark for peanut butter," she said. "The damages are incalculable." Unilever said that if she goes ahead with a claim they will fight it in court. In the other cartoon case Exxon Mobil lost a Supreme Court bid to end a legal skirmish with Kellogg's corn flakes over its use of Tony the Tiger. This month a court turned away an appeal by the Texas oil giant, which argued it could use Tony because it has been using a tiger for years to sell products. Kellogg's claimed Exxon's tiger looks too much like Tony the Tiger, the cartoon character that's been hawking Kellogg's Frosties since 1952. Exxon introduced its cartoon tiger in 1964 as the star of its 'Put a Tiger in Your Tank' ad campaign. Exxon said the cereal maker had no right to complain after "more than 30 years of peaceful coexistence of the two tigers." In an earlier ruling a judge in Memphis, dismissed the lawsuit, agreeing that Kellogg had been remiss "in failing to assert its rights" for more than 30 years. But Kellogg's said that Exxon stopped using its cartoon tiger in the 1980s. When it was resurrected in the 1990s, Exxon's tiger was not just promoting gasoline, but also food and beverages at the company's new Tiger Mart stores. Kellogg's said the new uses of Exxon's tiger caused consumer confusion and diluted its trademark. Its lawsuit seeks to prohibit Exxon from using its tiger in connection with sales other than gasoline. "Tony the Tiger is not only famous in the cereal market, but his fame and recognition permeate the entire food category,Kellogg's attorneys said in a statement. By Jim Cruickshank in New York Sunday, 29th October 2000 Scotland on Sunday PLEASE SEND PIUG-L SYSOP REPLIES TO: William.M.Murray@USA.dupont.com _________________________________________________________________________ This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 10 2001 - 15:59:02 EDT |