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Penguins and turtles and giraffes — oh, my.
Mutual of Omaha is suing a Virginia company over a calendar titled “Earth's Wild Kingdom,” saying the Omaha insurance company has the exclusive right to use “Wild Kingdom” for commercial purposes, including its own “Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom” calendar.
This is at least the third legal dispute involving Mutual's marketing efforts over the years.
Mutual filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Omaha against MeadWestVaco Corp., a publicly traded company with $6 billion in revenue in 2009. Its headquarters are in Richmond, Va. Mead's main business is packaging consumer goods for other companies.
A Mead spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
Last spring, Oprah Winfrey's entertainment company sued Mutual over an advertising campaign in which Mutual customers recounted “aha moments” in their lives. Winfrey's company said her use of the phrase won the right to use it.
Mutual spokesman Jim Nolan said that lawsuit was settled “amicably on both sides.”
In 1981, Mutual sued an Omahan who made T-shirts showing a distorted image of the company's Indian-head logo and the words “Mutant of Omaha.”
The T-shirt originator said he was inspired by a TV documentary that dramatized the effects of a nuclear attack on Omaha and showed the company's logo blown to bits.
In that case, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in the company's favor, with the dissenting judge saying the court was violating the T-shirt maker's right to free speech.
In the latest lawsuit, Mutual said it became aware of the “Earth's Wild Kingdom” calendar when one of its employees bought one at a Walgreens drugstore in Omaha on Jan. 22.
Mutual maintains that Mead's Wild Kingdom calendar violates Mutual's trademark and service mark protection of the term and uses pictures of some of the same animals as the 2010 “Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom” calendar, including penguins, turtles and giraffes.
Mutual said it has used the Wild Kingdom name since 1963, when it began a television series. Mutual said it has spent more than $100 million promoting and developing its “Wild Kingdom” TV program and related conservation and advertising programs.
The words also appear on pencils, T-shirts, jackets, watches, coffee mugs, notepads, DVDs, trinkets and stuffed animals.
Mutual said it believes Mead used the “Wild Kingdom” title intentionally to trade on Mutual's goodwill and advertising investment, selling the calendar for $11.99 over the Internet and through retailers nationally.
Mead's use of the term is likely to cause confusion and mistakes and to deceive customers, Mutual said, and any problems with the Mead calendar could reflect badly on the insurance company.
The company asked the court to ban Mead from using “Wild Kingdom,” to pay any profits plus unspecified damages and to destroy merchandise bearing the words.
Contact the writer:
444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com
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