Jack Daniel's wins at Supreme Court in trademark battle with novelty dog toy company

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of Jack Daniel's in its fight against a dog toy manufacturer.

The case centers around a trademark dispute with the makers of the Bad Spaniels dog toy. The toy, created by VIP Products, looks like a Jack Daniel's whiskey bottle but includes poop-themed jokes and other differences. 

A lower court ruled that the toy was protected by first amendment rights as a parody. 

In announcing the decision for a unanimous court, Justice Elena Kagan was in an unusually playful mood. Observers who watched her read a summary of the opinion in the courtroom said at one point she held up the toy, which squeaks and mimics the whiskey’s signature bottle.

Kagan said a lower court's reasoning was flawed when it ruled for the makers of the rubber chew toy. The court did not decide whether the toy's maker had violated trademark law but instead sent the case back for further review.

“This case is about dog toys and whiskey, two items seldom appearing in the same sentence,” Kagan wrote in an opinion for the court. At another point, Kagan asked readers to “Recall what the bottle looks like (or better yet, retrieve a bottle from wherever you keep liquor; it's probably there)" before inserting a color picture of it.

The “Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker” toy is made to look like a Jack Daniel’s bottle, although made of plastic. It uses a similar set of fonts and a black label to the whiskey, replacing the “Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” slogan with “The Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet."

The plastic toy also swaps the liquor bottle’s “40% ALC. BY VOL. (80 PROOF)” notice with “43% POO BY VOL.” and “100% SMELLY.”

Attorneys representing Jack Daniel's, based in Lynchburg, Tennessee, argued the toy misleads customers, profits “from Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill” and associates its “whiskey with excrement.”

Several major companies, such as shoe maker Nike, filed briefs in support of Jack Daniel's, arguing that jokes like the one made by VIP Products should still be taken seriously in court.

“Though defendants will often have an incentive to label it as such, not every humorous use of another’s trademark is a parody,” Nike wrote in its brief. “Courts therefore should take a disciplined approach to this important classification in cases where ‘parody’ is claimed.”

After hearing arguments about how much protection should be given to parodies that rip off trademarked product, the high court ultimately sided with Jack Daniel's, in a unanimous opinion written by Kagan. 

The decision, Kagan noted, was narrow and avoided touching on thorny trademark questions with broader implications for how parody is defined and whether it is protected speech when using trademarked brands. 

Instead, the ruling allows Jack Daniel's to revive their lawsuit against VIP Products in the lower courts. In the meantime, the "Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker" toy remains on store shelves. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.