Girl Scouts Continuing To Fight Boy Scouts Of America Over Trademarks, Branding

Trademark

from the scout's-honor dept

While Techdirt generally and myself more specifically tend to fall on the side of a more permissive philosophy when it comes to policing trademarks, there are certainly times when one entity or another crosses the line. As it happens, it seems somewhat common that those lines get crossed by parties that have themselves been quite aggressive in policing their own IP. When the Girl Scouts of America (GSA) sued the Boy Scouts of America in 2018 over the rebranding BSA went through after finally allowing girls to join, it was not difficult to see the GSA’s side of things. Essentially, what was The Boy Scouts of America became simply Scouts BSA, which did away with the core gender distinction that drew a shiny line between the two organizations in the public sphere. GSA provided real world examples of confusion in the public, with stories of some families thinking or being told that BSA and GSA had merged, and others having intended on signing their daughters up for GSA and ending up in Scouts BSA.

In the end, this ultimately was caused by the cavalier attitude Scouts BSA took to its rebranding. A moment’s thought would immediately have brought these concerns to light, but Scouts BSA plowed ahead.

And now that cavalier attitude appears to have continued, with GSA issuing another filing against BSA over further rebranding efforts its undertaken.

In its filing, the Girl Scouts said the Boy Scouts’ marketing of expanded services for girls was “extraordinary and highly damaging to Girl Scouts” and had set off an “explosion of confusion.”

“As a result of Boy Scouts’ infringement, parents have mistakenly enrolled their daughters in Boy Scouts thinking it was Girl Scouts,” the lawyers said, adding that this never occurred before 2018.

At issue here are numerous instances of Scouts BSA groups either blurring the lines in recruitment advertisements, or outright creating confusion. In the cases that are less clear-cut, GSA alleges that Scouts BSA advertised recruitment referencing simply “scouting” or “scout me in” alongside images of young women. In the more clear instances of sowing confusion, Scouts BSA groups advertised “girl scouting”, which seems like a fairly flagrant infringement of GSA’s trademarks.

And then there are some allegations that are nearly too brazen to believe.

The lawyers said Boy Scouts councils in Illinois acknowledging improperly using the Girl Scouts’ slogan in Cub Scout recruiting materials and pictures of Girl Scouts to promote a Boy Scouts “Scouts Sign-Up Night!”

They said a western Massachusetts Boy Scouts council posted a recruiting flyer on Facebook including a photograph of a girl depicted in her Girl Scouts Brownie uniform.

Meanwhile, Ohio Boy Scouts used the Girl Scouts trademark to try to get a local newspaper to write an article, suggesting a storyline entitled “Boy and Girl Scouts Looking for Members” even though the recruitment involved only the Boy Scouts, the lawyers said.

This, again, from an organization that has a fairly clear track record as being quite aggressive in the enforcement of its own IP. Hell, back before the rebrand, the BSA lobbied Congress for its own special law to allow it to be an even bigger trademark bully.

All of which is to say that it’s very hard to be on Scouts BSA’s side of any of this.

Filed Under: boyscouts, confusion, girl scouts, scouts, trademark
Companies: boy scouts of america, girl scouts of america