Restaurant Chain Suing Sweets Company Over Smiley-Faced Cookies

No laughing matter.

In a case that just makes me want to order folks to turn their frowns upside down, a Pennsylvania baked goods company is suing a Chicago business over what it calls a similar use of smiley faces on cookies. Can’t we all just eat cookies featuring joyful visages and be happy about it?

No, apparently not: Eat’n Park of Pennsylvania is suing Chicago American Sweet & Snacks in federal court over its use of a cookie that features a smiling face drawn in icing, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

On the one hand, there’s Eat’n Park’s Smiley cookies, which it’s been selling since 1985. Those feature white icing with a smiling face — including a nose — in various colors.

Chicago American’s “Smiley’s” are a lot like its product, Eat’n Park claims. That iteration of happy baked good is a beige treat filled with chocolate cream, with brown wyes and a smiling mouth. No nose, however.

Eat’n Park has filed numerous trademark infringement suits against various companies to protect its design in the past, something the company is required to do now and then to defend the Smiley trademarks.

“In this particular case, the ‘Smiley’s Cookies’ logo name and design used by the company infringes on our brand trademark,“ a spokesman told the paper.

Eat’n Park sues Chicago cookie-maker over Smiley trademark [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist