Copyright governs who has the "right" to produce and distribute "copies" of books/music/movies/creative works. This is where fair use doctrine applies, because most creative works are referential by nature.
Weird Al is allowed to parody everything because he's operating under copyright law, not trademark law.
Trademark governs who can "trade" under what "mark" i.e. the brand identity of a company. Companies don't own their trademarked word forever, but they maintain the exclusive right to sell things under that brand in their specific market sector. Patagonia doesn't own the name of a geographical region, they just own the right to be the only company using that name to sell clothing and outdoor gear.
A drag queen name can be a parody of a clothing and outdoor gear company.
A company's trademarked logo can be used in parody creative works, with more leeway if it's not for commercial purposes. Trademark parody is allowed! Patagonia has been aware of and allowed Pattie Gonia's trademark parody for years.
Trademarks are specific to market sector. Actress Chase Infiniti could start a makeup line named after herself and her trademark would not infringe on the Infiniti car brand because they are different markets and there is no risk of confusion. Pattie Gonia could probably trademark her name to sell frozen veggie burgers and Patagonia would not care.
Drag queen Jan Sport did a collab with JanSport bags. What Jan Sport almost certainly did not do is independently apply to register "Jan Sport" as a trademark in order to sell bags on her own, because that would infringe on JanSport's own trademark in the bag market sector.
What Pattie Gonia is not allowed to do -- the thing that Pattie Gonia actually did do and is being sued for -- is apply to register "Pattie Gonia" as a trademark to sell clothing, because apparently Pattie is in talks with North Face and HydroFlask to sell "Pattie Gonia"-branded gear. These companies probably won't finalize anything unless Pattie shows that she actually owns the trademark. Unfortunately, "Patagonia" is already a registered trademark in the clothing market sector, and these two names are too similar to exist in the same sector (see: "likelihood of confusion" legal standard).
Your drag queen name can parody a clothing company. You can parody the trademarked logo of a clothing company. But you cannot use the same name to then go on to also become a clothing company.
In order to maintain their own trademark, Patagonia must sue for trademark infringement. If they don't sue, and Pattie Gonia gets her own trademark, Pattie could sue Patagonia for infringement on her trademark. You can see why Patagonia won't be dropping this suit no matter how much you harass them.
Yes, Pattie's legal fees to fight this will cost more than the $1 she's being sued for. Pattie could also not fight this, withdraw her trademark application, not spend any money, and carry on being an environmental activist drag queen named Pattie Gonia. She would probably be better off making nice with Patagonia in the hopes of a Jan Sport-esque deal where Pattie designs an exclusive fabric and Patagonia maintains the trademark, but apparently Pattie's legal team has been sassing off to Patagonia in their communications for years, has applied for a trademark they should 100% know they'll never get, and has now decided to play the victim on social media just in time for Pride month, so I don't know how likely that is. I guess we'll see!
This is mostly correct, but I’d like to offer a small correction. The product deal with Hydroflask and North Face apparently occurred in 2022, and HydroFlask got Patagonia involved to make sure everything was in the clear. It seems like Patagonia was very agreeable about everything at the time, and only asked that Pattie Gonia and her partners avoid using the Patagonia logo and font or similar images, and to avoid putting the words “Pattie Gonia” on any products. This is the email exchange from 2022, from the recent Patagonia trademark complaint, including Pattie Gonia apparently agreeing to the limitations.
The new conflict is from Pattie Gonia using the Patagonia imagery and the Pattie Gonia name on her own merchandise. This is the email Patagonia sent, with the images they feel conflict with the 2022 agreement.
Pattie responded to that by disagreeing that she had broken any agreement, and also obliquely threatening to expose Patagonia for making tactical gear for the US military?
It’s possible that Patagonia understood the terms from 2022 to be a good-faith ongoing agreement about keeping the brands separate, and Pattie interpreted it as an agreement limited to the now-ended North Face and Hydroflask collaboration. It’s also possible that Pattie Gonia didn’t believe she was actually agreeing to anything at all, since her responses were very neutral, though positive in tone, up until 2025. The email chain does, however, show what I think is a very clear effort on Patagonia’s part to protect their trademark while also showing support and goodwill towards Pattie in her use of the Pattie Gonia stage persona.
Reblogging this because I think it provides an interesting explanation of the legal side of this whole mess, but to be clear the Only Correct Reaction here is to understand that copyright and trademark are Fucking Stupid, not to get out your torches and pitchforks to defend teh poor innocent cowpowation from a scawy yucky-wucky dwag queen.
Pattie selling shit with her stage name on it Really Obviously isn’t going to have any negative effect on the continued lining of Patagonia CEO pockets, as if that even fucking matters, and no amount of waxing poetic about “well they have to 🥺🥺🥺” is going to make me say anything other than “fucking stupid if true then”.
Y’all gotta stop jumping to defend corpos just because blah blah trademarks blah blah copyrights. As the famous post implies y’all are not temporarily embarrassed vivzipops.
You will struggle to defend Pattie Gonia with the argument that "trademarks are fucking stupid" when this all started because Pattie applied for a trademark of her own.
In terms of whose pockets are being lined:
Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.
The unusual move comes at a moment of growing scrutiny for billionaires and corporations, whose rhetoric about making the world a better place is often overshadowed by their contributions to the very problems they claim to want to solve.
At the same time, Mr. Chouinard’s relinquishment of the family fortune is in keeping with his longstanding disregard for business norms, and his lifelong love for the environment.
(NYT Gift Link)
Since 2022, 100% of Patagonia's profits have gone to climate and environmental causes. They have completely restructured the ownership of the company so that this will continue in perpetuity.
I like Pattie Gonia and I admire her environmental activism, but Patagonia's $100 million toward climate causes every year forever has orders of magnitude more impact. I support Patagonia maintaining its trademark however necessary to continue this work, and it is actually deeply distasteful to me that Pattie is willing to spin this routine trademark suit as "a corporation trying to erase an activist" when there is very obviously no path to legal victory and the only possible outcome is reputational damage to the only major corporation literally ever that has been singularly, intentionally, innovatively, and against all odds structured to give a fuck. Patagonia is a unicorn among corporations and we are starting a smear campaign against it for what. Selling slightly different t-shirts? Crab bucket ass activism.
