Santa Cruz coffee shop with 'cat' in its name hit with cease and desist from Caterpillar Inc.

SF Chronicle ^ | 5/27/19 | By Kyla Linville

[Hot Tabasco]

Don't blame Caterpillar. Blame trademark law.

No, I blame Caterpillar. Let them go after a legitimate trademark infringement rather than a coffee shop.

This is just as ridiculous as kicking an 8 year old kid out of school for using his thumb and forefinger and pointing it at another kid............

[Zathras]

Boeing copyrighted all of the 7xx numbers.

[Zathras]

I understand the issue but seeing this seems to indicate Caterpillar would loose.

[9YearLurker]

And even a “caterpillar” shouldn’t be protected like that.

[NorthMountain]

Boeing copyrighted all of the 7xx numbers.

They missed one:

[Jolla]

Great press for Caterpillar Inc.

Any woman named Catherine that goes by Cat should sue Caterpillar.

[Fido969]

Another cool thing was they got to review the movie scripts where their product would appear. If it showed the product in a favorable light then it would be approved. If it showed them in a bad light the symbols, logos, and names would have to be removed.

Gosh, you'd think they would have at least asked them to paint the Peterbuilt in the truck horror film "Duel."

Cripes, what a nasty looking rustbucket.

[Moonman62]

“We are not suing Cat & Cloud, not targeting a small business and not focused on Cat & Cloud’s primary interest: coffee. We’ve simply asked the U.S. Trademark Office to remove Cat & Cloud’s trademark registration on footwear and apparel only, products for which Caterpillar has longstanding trademarks and a considerable business. We hope to resolve this issue quickly.”

...

I agree with Caterpillar on this one. They are protesting a trademark registration by the coffee shop.

Too bad the Fake News didn’t make that clear in the title and at the start of the article.

[redshawk]

You’ll be sued by Katz Deli then. BTW, incredible pastrami sandwiches!

---

Yeah saw them on TV best sandwiches show..
Just wish I could get one or three. Looks like two pounds of meat.

[redshawk]

You make sense.
Lawyer?

[lee martell]

Cat and Cloud couldn’t pay for all this free publicity.
Now everyone knows their name and what they sell.

[piasa]

Technically they are objecting to the word in all caps... Not the word as it is normally used. But this is still stupid... If you want to trademark a word you should have to first establish that you invented it.

[Steve_Seattle]

This is just slack-jawed DUMB. No one is going to confuse this small shop with Caterpillar Inc. What were the CEO’s and lawyers at caterpillar thinking? “Today we really need some bad publicity”?

[dainbramaged]

Post surgery in 2010 the nurse who yanked my catheter might as well have been trying to start a chainsaw. She must have been having a bad day.

[morphing libertarian]

CAT and Cloud doesn’t stimulate my appetite. I prefer dog.

[Celtic Conservative]

It’s in California. Change it “El Gato Y Cielo”.

CC

[Tucker39]

Bingo! That’s what I want to know. What are they putting on their apparel that infringes CAT’s patents or copyrights? What the bleep do cats and clouds have to do with each other that would infringe Caterpillar? Having dealt with Fortune 500 corporations, I think there’s more to this than we’ve been told. I can’t imagine CAT being frivilous over nothing. What’s on the apparel?

[NorthMountain]

It gives Cat and Cloud free publicity.

It makes Caterpillar, Inc. look like a bunch of Grade-A schmucks.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Plus, how can you trademark a common word anyway, at least exclusively?"

Starbuck's tried a similar stunt about fifteen years ago. A tiny Russian Orthodox monastery on Vashon Island in Washington State, was selling tea and coffee to help pay their bills, and one of their coffee products was called a "Christmas Blend." Starbuck's already had a "Christmas Blend," so they claimed proprietary rights. Yeah, that tiny monastery of five or six monks really posed a threat to the Starbuck's empire!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Santa Cruz coffee shop Cat and Cloud Coffee says it received a cease and desist from Caterpillar Inc. ***

Strange. I just had visions of the cafe in THE BANK DICK with W.C. Fields.