uh-oh, Sweet Pea, you're in violation...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/14/BAGK4HNF2K1.DTL

Apparently some company in Florida is suing anyone using the name Sweet Pea...

**The thriving Internet marketplace has been touted by many as the great economic equalizer, a place where the mom and pop shop can compete with the big bucks retailers.

But 52 small-time Internet retailers, including a Novato woman who put her daughter's pet name "Sweet Pea" on T-shirts and tried to sell them, are finding that may not be the case.

A Florida company, Sweet Pea Limited Inc., filed a federal lawsuit in January charging 34-year-old Laura Ostrowski and a variety of other Internet retailers around the country with trademark infringement after they put 'sweet pea' on baby clothes.

The company registered the term "Sweet Pea" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1997. The mark became incontestable in 2003. The lawsuit is demanding $16 million from each violator.**

I will pledge $5 if we need to mount a legal defense fund for our own Sweet Pea.

"You're the mayor of shark city, people think you want the beaches open."

[ Edited by: mrs. pineapple 2006-03-14 15:52 ]

That lawsuit is such a load of crap! I hope that group of retailers fight it. I'm sorry, but the company "Sweet Pea Limited, Inc." did not create the term "Sweet Pea." Its the name of a flowering plant... it is NOT their intellectual property. (I must admit that I had to look it up to know that it was a flowering plant... I though it was a vegetable that you get in your frozen foods section of your grocery store!)

Allowing that company to trademark the term "Sweet Pea" would be akin to me trademarking the term "Tiki."

Having said that, I have now registered the name "Tiki" as a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Anyone using the trademark must now pay me a royalty of $1 per use. :)

yikes!
That company sucks rotten eggs.
hmmmm
I'm Sweetpea with no space, so I'm probably safe.
The son of a co-worker is in a steel drum band called
The Toucans.
They got contacted by kelloggs and told to change their name,
that the cereal co. owned the name Toucan, because of Toucan Sam on the Fruit Loops box. Kellogs didn't win.