Another Small Outrage

It's odd that I almost take comfort in small outrages and annoyances these days. They feel so mundane, as if we're still a normal country where things go only slightly wrong and have the possibility of being corrected.

Here's an example.

A local business, The Herbivorous Butcher, began producing vegan products in 2016. Soon after, they filed trademark paperwork for several terms, including their name and a few other phrases they were using on their packaging, one of which was "vegan butcher."

They were given a trademark on all of the terms except The Vegan Butcher. For that one, they were denied because it was said to be "merely descriptive." So the sister and brother who own the business decided they were okay with that (since it essentially means the words are in the public domain), and they didn't contest it. They kept using the phrase and knew that other vegan producers could use it too.

Meanwhile, another vegan producer named Sweet Earth Foods, based in California since 2011, was acquired by the international food conglomerate Nestle. Less than two months after Herbivorous Butcher stopped pursuing the Vegan Butcher trademark, Nestle filed for a trademark on the same phrase and in February 2019 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted them a trademark on it.

Which is messed up, right?

The Herbivorous Butcher is contesting this, and I sure hope they win because it seems completely obvious that they should. But who knows these days.

Read all about it in the Star Tribune.