Buc-ee’s trademark bullying ways continue! This company that has long been famous for its enormous gas station and convenience stores practically dripping in Americana is quickly building a national reputation for itself as a petulant trademark bully. It’s lawsuits are typically dumb and usually feature Buc-ee’s claim that it somehow owns every cartoon animal mascot depiction for convenience stores and gas stations, and even cartoon human mascots at times. It’s so bad that it even caught the attention of John Oliver recently, resulting in the show creating its own merchandise that is far more similar to the Buc-ee’s beaver than most of its lawsuit victims and Oliver literally begging them to file a lawsuit over it.
Well, the Buc-ee’s people appear to be cowards. Oliver made it clear that he and HBO have the willingness and legal war chest to do battle with Buc-ee’s. To date the company has not filed any lawsuit against Oliver or HBO. But it did just file another trademark suit against another small local convenience store after having just moved into the market.
Buc-ee’s, which opened its first location in Ohio earlier this year, is suing Beaver’s Mini Mart in Beavercreek for what they allege is trademark infringement.
In the suit, filed days ago, Buc-ee’s alleges that the Mini Mart’s cartoon beaver mascot is too similar to their own, with its “wide eyes and a smile” that also “uses red as a predominant color,” and could cause confusion.
The new Buc-ee’s location in Huber Heights, Ohio, is 16 miles from Beaver’s Mini Mart. Beaver’s Mini Mart customers say they have been shopping there for decades, while Buc-ee’s has existed in the Buckeye State only since April.
This is common practice for Buc-ee’s. The company expands into a new market and goes on a trademark suit blitz against anyone using one of these cartoon animal logos, beaver or otherwise. It doesn’t matter how long the victim company has been doing business there. It doesn’t matter how ingrained into the community they are. It doesn’t matter if every local in the area insists that there’s no confusion to be had between the two entities.
In this case, the Beaver’s Mini Mart has been around for decades. The entire community is awash in beaver-y iconography. I’ll let one of our anonymous commenters from our John Oliver post chime in here.
They are now trying to sue a place near where I grew up, the “Beavers MiniMart” convenience store in Beavercreek Ohio, where the local high school, Beavercreek High School, once had Bucky the Beaver as a mascot for their football team, the Battling Beavers, their cheerleaders are called the Beaverettes and there’s pep squad called the Beaver Patrol. There’s concrete statues that are 6-8 feet tall, all over the city. The city loves it’s fuckin’ beavers. Buc-ee’s probably doesn’t know what’s about to happen to them. It wont be pretty.
The signage from Buc-ee’s own lawsuit show just how unalike the branding for the two companies is.
From this, and wielding a trademark Buc-ee’s somehow has on the word “Beaver’s” Buc-ee’s alleges that there will be “confusion among consumers,” that the Mini Mart is trading on Buc-ee’s “goodwill,” and that all of this is causing “irreparable injury” to Buc-ee’s.
Ironically, it appears this very lawsuit is causing a dip in all of that supposed goodwill Buc-ee’s has in this particular community.
“Reading into it more that Buc-ee’s has gone after other companies over this… It just put a bad taste in my mouth because they just seem like such a fun company,” resident Sam Bryan told Nexstar’s WDTN. “To see this, that they’re coming after a small business like this, it upset me like it did a lot of Beavercreek residents.”
The town is named Beavercreek, the branding doesn’t look anything alike, and nobody is going to be confused about any of this. Buc-ee’s knows all of that. But trademark bullies typically just can’t help themselves and this is yet another in a long list of bullshit trademark lawsuits the company has filed.
If Beaver’s Mini Mart fights this, however, it would be an interesting move in its defense to point out that there is no similar lawsuit against John Oliver.