The Consumerist has this report from ABC News:
In an Aug. 14 letter sent to Winkelmann’s St. Louis-area home, Jordan LaVine, a lawyer for The North Face, wrote that the companies’ logos are similar enough to possibly cause “consumer confusion as to the source, sponsorship or affiliation of particular problems and services that could dilute or tarnish the distinctive quality of the famous and distinctive TNFAC marks.”
Winkelmann is an 18-year-old who sells parody T-shirts and stuff.
Click here to see if you think consumer confusion might be an issue.
If the kid wants to compete with TNF while making fun of them, I think it’s his right. At least he’s being honest about it and not trying to counterfeit them. Here’s a clip from Wikipedia:
“For the same reasons that The North Face products are counterfeited, they are also prime targets for theft. In early 2005, a group of teenagers from Washington D.C. were arrested on charges including the armed robbery of specifically The North Face jackets from randomly picked students on the street. Allegedly, the thieves would then resell the products for a substantially decreased price.”
If your crap is so expensive that this sort of thing happens, you deserve to be copied. And rich yuppies are to blame for pushing up the price. A slogan:
“Yuppies. The reason why some things are so oddly @#$%ing expensive.”