THE DEATH OF THE OWL

Endangered Species

Here is a letter that Oliver and I received via email:

Oliver and Junichi

I want to keep this informal. I represent Tootsie Roll Industries on trademark matters.

While your blog/site has a lot of fun material, we need you to remove the Tootsie Roll owl logo. The logo, like other intellectual property of Tootsie Roll, is very important to the company. We cannot take the risk that anyone uses the company's marks in an uncontrolled manner. Since it is a famous mark, your use would be considered dilution of the brand. While your use may not be a problem, if you are allowed to continue to use the mark, then others with troublesome material will be able to argue that we are inconsistent in our enforcement and thus we have no right to stop them.

We expect that you understand, and we appreciate your cooperation.

Thanks.

Douglas R. Wolf
Wolf Greenfield
Specialists in Intellectual Property Law

[Contact info removed]

Hence, as of this weekend, you won't see the owl anymore on this website.

I wonder if Mr. Wolf also sent a similar letter to the 69 Boyz for their song "Tootsie Roll." After all, "Cotton candy / sweet & low / let me see that Tootsie Roll" is the much more serious dilution of the brand.

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FROM OLIVER: New logo up. I'm sure we won't run into intellectual property issues with this, right?

;)

--Junichi