Mullen-Moore should be allowed to ‘eat more kale’

By Jack Baker

Chick-fil-A is suing a Vermont man for infringing on the company’s trademarked slogan, “eat mor chikin.”

The company claims that the silk screened t-shirts and other items made by Bo Muller-Moore with the words “eat more kale” could hurt its business.

According to an article on Yahoo News, Chick-fil-A claims that the “eat more kale” message “is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A’s intellectual property and diminishes its value.”

I am so happy about this, because I bought five shirts from Muller-Moore thinking that they were actually from Chick-fil-A. This lawsuit is so important, because otherwise so many confused people would end up buying the wrong products.

In case you couldn’t tell, I am being sarcastic. This is absolutely ridiculous.

How does Chick-fil-A think that people are going to confuse handmade, silk-screened t-shirts from Vermont with chicken sandwiches?

Maybe they would have a case if Muller-Moore spelled the word kale with a C and then had pieces of lettuce say “eat mor Cale” in a commercial. But no, all the two messages have in common are the words “eat more”… and they’re not even spelled the same way.

To make matters worse, this isn’t even the first time that Chick-fil-A has gone after companies for having a message similar to its “eat mor chikin” slogan. Apparently it has done it 30 times before, according to the Yahoo News article.

What’s coming next? Is Chick-fil-A going to sue moms every time they ask their children to eat more vegetables?

It’s sad, but I could actually see that happening. I mean, its current lawsuit is based around a premise so ridiculous, that I actually had to specifically say I was being sarcastic because if not, no one would have taken me seriously.

It is really sad these kinds of lawsuits are allowed to happen in this country. But it’s good to know that there are people in the world like Muller-Moore that aren’t afraid to stand up to large corporations.

Muller-Moore said that he sees the current lawsuit as a David vs. Goliath type fight.

He’s right. In most cases likes this one, large corporations bring about brand protection lawsuits just in order to scare people away, according to a Vermont law school professor interviewed for the article.

However, Muller-Moore said he won’t back down and will fight to protect his business.

More people need to do this. Corporations already have way too much power in this country, and regular people need to stand up to them.

While I understand that sometimes companies need to protect their trademarked images or slogans, there needs to be a limit. This case is absurd and it is going too far. Maybe if there were more people like Muller-Moore, corporations wouldn’t have as much power or get away with the ridiculous things they get away with now.