Paws Off Our Trademark

The Lance Armstrong Foundation Inc. has sued Oklahoma’s Animal Charity Collar Group alleging trademark infringement of the foundation’s well-known LiveStrong yellow wristbands.

Animal Charity Collar Group, a for-profit company, produces yellow pet collars imprinted with slogans such as BARKSTRONG and PURRSTRONG, which are sold on over the Internet on their Web site www.barkstrong.net, and on retail sites like Amazon.com and eBay.

The Foundation seeks an injunctive order to prevent ACCG from referencing LiveStrong in its products.

Founded in 1997 following Armstrong’s survival of metastized testicular cancer, the Foundation supports national cancer advocacy, cancer research, and public health initiatives, and has used the LiveStrong slogan since 2003. The slogan is found on distinctive yellow silicone rubber wristbands sold through the Foundation “as part of the [Foundation's] mission to increase public awareness about cancer survivorship issues and to raise money for the [Foundation's] charitable programs,” says the lawsuit.

More than 70 million wristbands have been sold at $1 each, according to the lawsuit.

The Foundation seeks, in addition to an injunction order ending the use of the LiveStrong slogan by Animal Charity Collar Group, that www.barkstrong.net be shut down, all infringing products be destroyed, and unspecified monetary damages. The Foundation also seeks corrective advertising and widespread public notice disavowing any connection between Animal Charity Collar Group and the Foundation, and that the Group withdraw pending trademark applications for its collars.

The original article can be found here.