PORTLAND, Ore. — A coastal company that makes jerky has won a hard-fought legal battle over a far larger cheese company over using the name "Tillamook," the town where both are located.
U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled that Tillamook Country Smoker and the Tillamook County Creamery Association — also known as Tillamook Cheese — can use the name of the ancient Indian tribe in their business logos.
The ruling is a victory for the smoker, which since 1975 has sold jerky under the Tillamook name. The cheesemaker had asked for an injunction against the jerkymaker, saying the name belonged to the creamery.
Mosman disagreed in a ruling issued Friday and will allow the smoker to register the words "Tillamook Country Smoker" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Earlier, the judge ruled that although the cheesemaker had registered the "Tillamook" name in 1921 — more than five decades before the smoker existed — it had failed to assert its ownership over the trademark once the smoker began using it.
The judge's argument against the cheesemaker boils down to a case of "if you had a problem, you should have said something earlier," said Peter Staples, attorney for the smoker.
"In the meantime they (the smoker) built up name recognition. It's not fair to deprive them of that value. Imagine if Coca-Cola had to stop using Coca-Cola," Staples said.
Had it lost the right to use the name, the smoker would have been forced to destroy nearly $3 million in inventory of boxes, plastic wrappers and other packaging, all embossed with the Tillamook logo.
To avoid a legal fight with the creamery, numerous other companies on the coast had ceased using the word "Tillamook." They included a coffee shop selling "Tillamook coffee," a bird-feed business using the name "Tillamook Peanut Bugger" and a young couple who grew artichokes in their back yard under the name "Chokes from Tillamook."
In a prepared statement, the creamery's president and CEO, Jim McMullen, said that the company's attorney had not yet reviewed the ruling. "We're not prepared to give our board of directors and management an analysis of the decision," he said.
The name "Tillamook" was first recorded in the journals of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who reached the area of modern-day Tillamook in 1806, said Richard Engeman, public historian for the Oregon Historical Society.