“Bee Movie” Hit With Not-So-Sweet Lawsuit

by stefani November 6, 2007
Categories: Entertainment.

Many people went to see Jerry Seinfeld’s “Bee Movie” last week, but not everyone is buzzing its praises (sorry, it’s just too easy). The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that a trademark infringement complaint was filed last week in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida court against Dreamworks Animation and Paramount Pictures by organic body care products company BeeCeuticals Organics. BeeCeuticals claims “Bee Movie” stole their trademarked slogan “Give Bees a Chance,” which co-founder Richard Gerber says he thought up in a dream. Gerber claims BeeCeuticals was in talks with Dreamworks for cross-~~pollination~~ promotion with the film, but nothing transpired. BeeCeuticals apparently filed a trademark application for “Give Bees a Chance” last year through a Miami court. In another celeb twist, Gerber is a cousin of Howard Stern, and apparently has been running ads for BeeCeuticals with the disputed slogan on his Sirius radio show for a while.

BeeCeuticals Organics is a line of care products that includes shampoo, face creams, lip balms, lotions, all using natural ingredients such as essential oils and plant extracts, plus a blend of 100% organic holistic honey. BeeCeuticals also supports bee conservation as well as land conservation that results in successful bee farming for natural pollination. You can find more articles about the lawsuit as well as the actual filed complaint on BeeCeutical’s site. We wonder if Seinfeld feels a bit stung over this. Ouch.

Stefani Newman is a freelance writer and blogs about going green for kids at her site, teensygreen.

http://www.hi5-codes.com/ Hi5 Codes

I wonder if they win… I think they have a good chance considering they did trademark it =/.
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Carol Warner

BeeCeuticals wanted Dreamworks to join in their program that plants pollinator-friendly trees and help save the bees. Dreamworks took all of their marketing materials, looked at it, said no thanks and then used the stuff anyway without doing anything to help the bees. What a crock! I won’t see the Bee Movie. I shop at the Whole Foods in Fort Lauderdale where BeeCeuticals is from and I see the Bee guys in there all the time. They are great!
Lucy

So sick of Seinfeld and his crappy bee movie. He’s all about the money. While his wife is selling that book about healthy eating for kids he’s doing commercial for McDonald’s to promote his movie. Hypocrisy!
http://www.paperpusher.wordpress.com/ stefani

I actually received an email last night from the Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing for Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business. I’m going to print it verbatim because it was so informative. While it’s tough to try and defend McDonald’s, it is refreshing to see them pushing something other than fried foods and cheap plastic toys…

Thanks for reading – Stefani Newman
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“McDonald’s approached CI because they wanted to do more than just produce a happy meal, but really use their “megafone” to reach the millions of customers that walk through their doors everyday to inspire kids and families to take part in environmental activities in their everyday lives.

We were, of course, pretty excited because traditionally our messaging reaches the margins — the people who are really wanting to hear our message. With McDonald’s, however, it gave us a chance to reach consumers at a whole new scale. With the serious issue of Colony Collapse Disorder and the eco-themed Bee Movie both in the news, we had a perfect opportunity to use this unusual icon to talk about the important pollination services they provide (an estimated $14B to the US Economy alone) and the need to protect them by protecting ecosystems.

The initiative breaks down into three major components:

*A donation by McDonald’s to support two CI projects in South Africa and Mexico to protect Bee Habitat
*Enviromental Education messaging to McDonald’s customers both in-restaurants (trayliners) and online (eco-themed Bee Movie site & wireless network)
*A joint “Bee Good to the Planet” Pledge for kids and families available at conservation.org/bees and happymeal.com.

You may also be interested to know that CI has been working with McDonald’s for nearly 20 years to support field conservation and green their supply chain. That info is on our Bee Pledge pages as well.”
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