Trademarks – Use of The North Face Parody Violates Settlement Agreement

In an order filed in early October, U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel found that “The Butt Face” creator Jimmy Winkelmann, Winkelmann’s father, and their company Why Climb Mountains violated their 2010 settlement with The North Face. The 2010 settlement came after a trademark infringement suit filed by The North Face that claimed Winkelmann infringed The North Face logo and registered trademarks with Winkelmann’s parody line of clothing called The South Butt and The Butt Face.

Winkelmann gained wide attention after The North Face sent a cease and desist letter that drove sales to the small Ladue, Missouri company. However, the two parties reached a settlement in 2010 in which Winkelmann agreed to pay $65,000 to The North Face.

The amount owed was to drop by $1,000 for every month that the defendants didn’t violate the settlement. However, shortly after the settlement agreement the Winkelmanns formed a new company that started selling gear under the name “The Butt Face."

The Winkelmann’s also operate a website that features a Polo by Ralph Lauren parody called OLOP by Lalph Roren.

“There is a fine line between parody and trademark infringement,” stated Klemchuk LLP associate Roxana Sullivan. “The Winkelmanns have not been successful in asserting the parody defense against The North Face, so it will be interesting to see if Ralph Lauren also decides to assert their trademark rights against the Winkelmann’s.”

For more information, please visit our trademark service page.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX.  The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.  The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution.  Additional information about the IP law firm and its IP law attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

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