Jack Daniel's will bring to the Supreme Court a dog toy dispute that began in 2014 when it sent a cease-and-desist letter to VIP Products over their "Bad Spaniels" dog toy.
A ripoff of a Jack Daniel's bottle, the toy dog had a label stating, among other jokes, "The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet."
In 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Bad Spaniels is a parody, which would typically be protected by the First Amendment, in overturning a previous judgment that VIP Products infringed on Jack Daniel's trademark.
Jack Daniel's contention in petitioning the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling was whether the right to parody still applies where the parody is itself a product and could cause issues in the marketplace.
Lisa Blatt, the lead attorney for Jack Daniel's, said VIP's profit-motivated 'joke' confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel's hard-earned goodwill.
On the other hand, Bennett Cooper, a lawyer for VIP Products, said they have “a good test case to create a national standard."
