Odd Suit Involves e-Cigarettes, Fruit Stripe Gum

TrinitySun using gum brand's trademarks to sell e-liquid: lawsuit
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2015 7:39 AM CDT
Odd Suit Involves e-Cigarettes, Fruit Stripe Gum
Fruit Stripe gum.   (Ferrara USA)

A candy company is downright bitter over an online e-cigarette company it says ripped off its trademarks. Ferrara Candy is suing TrinitySun, which operates www.evape.us, claiming the company sold an e-liquid mimicking its well-known Fruit Stripe gum, reports the Chicago Tribune. Ferrara says it contacted TrinitySun several times and sent at least three cease-and-desist letters between August and October of last year, after which the website altered its use of some of the Fruit Stripe trademarks. Specifically, the site changed the name of its e-liquid to Striped Gum. It continued, however, to represent the product with five colorful stripes, in line with Fruit Stripe's design, around since the 1960s, according to Ferrara's site.

"If parents thought Ferrara Candy was trying to use its famous candy brands to hook children into nicotine products, it would dramatically and irreparably harm Ferrara Candy and its FRUIT STRIPE trademark," the company says in the suit filed Friday in Illinois. The suit asks that TrinitySun end its use of the Fruit Stripe name, along with "confusingly similar" marks, words, designs, and other names. "I had a flavor that was labeled as Fruit Stripe gum, they asked me to remove that, and I did," TrinitySun President Dave Miller responds. He adds he changed the name of the product to Striped Gum e-liquid "probably six months ago." The Tribune notes that product vanished from the site after the paper requested comment. (Fruit Stripe could help get that song out of your head.)

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