When you think of a blizzard, what do you think of? You’re wrong. It’s ice cream. I’m Amy E. Feldman.
Dairy Queen has gone to court to stop office products company W.B. Mason from selling the spring water it calls Blizzard Spring Water, because Dairy Queen trademarked the use of the name Blizzard in 1946, and sells soft serve ice cream with toppings mechanically blended in under that name. Mmmm… Ice cream with toppings. Sorry. It says it also sells water at the stores where it sells Blizzards.
To win a trademark infringement claim, Dairy Queen is going to have to prove that there is a danger that consumers would be confused about what they are actually buying. W.B. Mason argues that there’s no evidence that a single consumer thought they were buying an ice cream—or any Dairy Queen product—when it sold 188 million bottles so far. So we will watch to see how this case goes as it progresses, with a bottle of water in one hand and an ice cream in the other.
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