I still don’t think it’s a good poster-boy (or girl) for trademark bullying, but the NYT published a follow-up article saying Procter & Gamble had settled its dispute with a mom-owned personal care products company. (See STL post about the NYT’s first article.)
The dispute arose over P&G’s prior use of WELLA for hair care products and the startup’s adoption of WILLA for skin care products.
Both NYT articles used the dispute to discuss trademark bullying — as if P&G had over-reached in asserting its rights.
I’m all for the mainstream media’s help in familiarizing the public with issues that trademark practitioners work with every day. In fact, I’m grateful for it. I just — again — question whether the WELLA vs. WILLA dispute is a good vehicle for introducing the issue. I don’t at all see P&G as being another Monster Cable — threatening everyone under the sun who uses MONSTER as a trademark in any context, regardless of whether confusion would be (even remotely) likely.
Again, P&G didn’t do itself any favors when it used overbearing language in contacting the startup. It wasn’t exactly graceful when it told the owner-mother that if she did not immediately drop her trademark, it would resort to “lengthy and expensive alternative measures.” Still, it doesn’t seem at all unreasonable that the owner of WELLA for personal care products would not want a new entrant to start using WILLA also for personal care products.
To me, the media’s depiction of the suit shouldn’t have been big vs. little. It would have been more accurate (though I guess less interesting) to portray the dispute simply as prior user vs. later user.
So how was the dispute resolved? The article says terms are confidential, but the startup will get to keep using WILLA.