Popsicle Threatens People's Pops

The people behind People's Pops (a trio that handmakes their pops from fresh ingredients provided by local farmers) recently received a C&D letter from the one and only POPSICLE® brand. Big time! The Unilever Supply Chain, Inc. declared POPSICLE® to be their registered trademark, and requested that they remove any mention of the word (which appeared on their blog 17 times) "with proper generic terminology such as ‘ice pop(s)."

The ice pop slingers have just opened a store in Chelsea Market, where they're serving up crazy flavors like rhubarb-jasmine, and say that "whatever they’re called, our ice pops still taste better." Even Martha Stewart prefers them—when she visited the troupe at the Brooklyn Flea last year she referred to their treats as ice pops, though the People's Popsters called them the P® word... on air! [Grub Street]

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By Jen Carlson in Food on June 1, 2010 2:26 PM

Comments [rss]

Smig Robustus

God, the world is now full of a bunch of wussie woe is me....Look, like it or not, PoP is a word someone else decided to use in connection to a frozen treat. They were first. They were smart. AND THEY HAVE A CASE. So stop being whiny bitches and come up with another name. OR I guess in fifty years a computer company wants to call their computer APPLE, and these guys telling them no is just them being capitolist pigs.

POPS isn't yours to use. as much as you and other wannabe rebels want you to use them. Get over it, get a new name and stop combining social issues with business (Oh, or you can talk to all those "sustainable south american cocoa growers that were hung out to dry by those "rebel do gooders ben and gerries ( or whatever their bullshit names are) There is NO SUCH THING AS MORALS when it comes to cash

bakermargar

For a science project I need to build lever bopper aka that thing in cartoons which has a boxing glove on a thing that looks like this XXX. I am wondering, if I hot glue say 4-8 popsicle sticks together if it'd be possible fo it to be stable. I also need to drill holes in this so ehehe, Thanks Alot!

http://hcgultradietdrops.blogspot.com/

henryhamilton

I'll bet their overpriced, and lousy.

oofstar

xerox actually paid for a print ad campaign to get people to stop using 'xerox' to generically mean photocopy. apparently, it you do it enough, they can lose their trademark. i'd say 'popsicle' is way past that point. i've never thought of it as a brand name.

longacre

Adobe tried to do this with Photoshop and I think Google did also, issuing guidelines to media organizations about the proper usage of their brand names. They were mostly ignored.

Politburo

Non-story, free ad.

gattopardo

It's not "pop" or "pops" that they find objectionable, it's the trademarked "popsicle."

Guest

Fuck the people at POPSICLE. There's a guy in Atlanta that makes his own (basil lemon and cinnamon banana, to name a couple) and he's called King of Pops. I hope he doesn't get a C&D from POPSICLE and Michael Jackson.