What Tiger King Teaches About Trademarks
**the following contains very mild spoilers of Netflix’s documentary Tiger King**
Tiger King has it all.
A wild cast of characters. A “Hatfield & McCoy” level of bitter rivalry. All of America asks whether Carole Baskin killed her husband in the 1990s. And was there a sex cult?
It also has some real world lessons about trademark law.
The rivalry between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin escalated to Joe’s desire to destroy Big Cat Rescue’s brand name. He wanted to attack her company’s internet goodwill.
This led to a massive trademark lawsuit. This seemed to be a turning point for Joe Exotic as it crushed him financially and led him to a downward spiral of desperation, revenge, and animal neglect.
It was sad and unnecessary.
As an intellectual property attorney that counsels businesses and entrepreneurs, I could only shudder at what unfolded. Didn’t his attorney know of the danger? Any IP attorney would have warned him that this was a very, very bad path.
I found the complaint for Big Cat Rescue Corp. v. Big Cat Rescue Entertainment Group, Inc., et al. (8:11-cv-00209-MSS-MAP). It had more detail of the trademark suit than was included in the show. Also interesting, there was a co-pending copyright lawsuit as well, which didn’t make it into the show.
Let’s unpack all the craziness from a trademark law perspective.
Oklahoma trade name registration
Phase one of this trademark war seemed to begin in the Spring of 2010. At that time, Joe Exotic’s zoo (i.e., the G.W. Exotic Animal Memorial Foundation, or “GWE”) filed the trade names ‘BIG CAT RESCUE ENTERTAINMENT’ and ‘CARROLL BASKIN ENTERTAINMENT GROUP’ with the Oklahoma Secretary of State.
Think about that – Joe Exotic tried to claim Carole Baskin’s name as his own trademark. It’s spelled slightly differently, but that’s what he wanted to do.
This was discussed in the lawsuit complaint, but not in the actual show.
That raises a question – can you get a trademark that incorporates someone else’s name? What about the name of your business rival?
Ordinarily, yes, you can get someone else’s name into your trademark. Trademark law usually doesn’t care what your actual name is. The public name of the business is really the only thing that matters. Most trade names actually are different names from that of the business owners’ personal names.
This happens all the time. For example, here in New York, there are a lot of pizzerias called ‘JOE’S PIZZA.’ They all look different so I don’t believe that they are part of a large chain of businesses. It also helps that the name ‘Joe’ is pretty generic without the last name.
Here’s the caveat – Joe Exotic tried to trademark his rival’s name, using both her first and last name. This would cause problems.
Trademark law seeks to avoid customer confusion. Using the full name of ‘CAROLL BASKIN’ in connection with another animal park would certainly cause customer confusion.
That was precisely what Joe Exotic tried to do.
Ultimately, Joe Exotic dropped his attempt to register the name ‘CARROLL BASKIN’ with the State of Oklahoma because he found a better way to destroy himself.
Big Cat Rescue Entertainment
Joe Exotic created a company called ‘Big Cat Rescue Entertainment’ (“BCRE”). The name was clearly similar to Carole Baskin’s ‘Big Cat Rescue’.
A comparison of BCRE’s and Big Cat Rescue’s logos are provided by below. The two were shown in the Netflix series, but let’s look at them again.
and
According to both the complaint and the show, this picture of the snow leopard’s eyes was very similar to a photograph that Big Cat Rescue used across its logo at the time.
This is blatant trademark infringement. This is also what destroyed Joe Exotic.
Let me explain why.
For trademark infringement, the legal standard is whether two marks are “confusingly similar” for customers, i.e., whether or not customers would be confused.
Would customers be confused? Absolutely.
First question – is the mark federally registered?
‘Big Cat Rescue’ is the federally registered trademark of Carole Baskin’s company.
A federally protected trademark provides a number of benefits and for further explanation, I’ll refer you to my general page on trademarks.
In a nutshell, it protected Carole Baskin and allowed her to destroy Joe Exotic in court.
Second question – are the trade names similar?
Yes, the words themselves are identical except but for the additional ‘Entertainment’.
Due to the overlap of the names, the chance for customer confusion is more likely.
Third question – are they direct competitors?
Yes, both BCRE and Big Cat Rescue are direct competitors. Both relate to animal parks with lots of tigers and charge admission for people to visit them.
Because they’re market competitors, the chance for customer confusion is more likely.
Fourth question – are they geographically related?
This somewhat helped Joe.
BCRE was technically in Oklahoma while Big Cat Rescue was in Florida. So, they weren’t competing for the same customers, which lowers the chance of customer confusion.
However, Federal trademark registration provides national trademark protection. So, Joe Exotic would probably have been sued if he had opened BCRE anywhere in the United States.
But this is where Joe Exotic destroys his own case.
The BCRE logo above provides a phone number for its “Florida office”. The phone number has an (813) area code, which is for the city of Tampa and its environs.
So, Joe Exotic wanted customers to believe that his BCRE was located in Florida.
Incredible.
This destroyed any chance that he had to argue against customer confusion.
I’ve seen a lot of intellectual property disputes, but have never seen anything like this. This was a total slam-dunk case in favor of Carole Baskin.
What trademark lessons does Tiger King teach us?
- Register your trademark
- Avoid other people’s trademarks – particularly if you’re market competitors
- Do not pretend to compete when you’re not (like pretending to be in Florida when you’re not)
- Listen to your IP attorneys
My advice to Joe Exotic – he should’ve started an unrelated company, say a landscaping business, and attached “Big Cat Rescue” to that.
Let’s call this “BIG CAT RESCUE MULCH & LAWNMOWERS.”
It might have actually worked, provided that he avoided stating that it was in Florida or using a similar picture from Big Cat Rescue’s webpage.
Joe Exotic clearly did not listen to the advice from any IP attorney. It was a lost cause.
Hope you found this info helpful and/or entertaining. Have you encountered a trademark issue? Please let me know in comments!