Public Backlash Leads Tusla Park To Stop Bullying Coffee Shop Over Trademark

Public Backlash Leads Tusla Park To Stop Bullying Coffee Shop Over Trademark

3 years ago
Anonymous $BH0TGXkyPe

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211013/09434247741/public-backlash-leads-tusla-park-to-stop-bullying-coffee-shop-over-trademark.shtml

A good public outcry and backlash can lead to many, many good things. We see it here at Techdirt all the time, particularly when it comes to aggressive bullying episodes over intellectual property. Some person or company will try to play IP bully against some victim, the public gets wind of it and throws a fit, and suddenly the necessity over the IP action goes away. Retailers, manufacturers, breweries: public outcry is a great way to end ridiculous legal actions.

A recent example of this comes out of Tulsa, OK, where a riverside park of all places decided it had to sue a coffee shop over a similar, if fairly generic, name. Gathering Place is a park in Tulsa, a... place... where people... you know... gather. The Gathering Place is a coffee shop in Shawnee, 90 miles from Tulsa, where people get coffee and, I imagine, occasionally gather. But despite any gathering similarities, coffee shops are not parks and 90 miles is a fairly long way away. Which makes a lawsuit over trademark infringement brought by the park very, very strange.