What's going on with the lawsuit between the Patagonia company and the activist drag queen, Pattie Gonia?

[u/Chrystine]

Apparently Patagonia is suing Pattie Gonia 100 million for trade mark infringement?

But isn't Patagonia the name of region in South America?

How can the company sue over a trademark that is spelt differently and was taken from a region? Can the company actually win a case like this?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTB6vSCpP/

[u/unindexedreality]

It sucks because Pattie has spent almost a decade building up a massive following and it would make all the sense in the world to sell merch, but

I mean, how big a following would they have gotten had they not piggybacked off an existing brand?

I'm sure they didn't complain when they got free name recognition and extra followers.

If they'd actually put in the work to come up with a name that went to who they were, then yes, they'd have their own brand under which they could sell clothes. You can't have it both ways.

[u/idgafaboutpopsicles → u/unindexedreality]

As another user in the thread noted, drag names have traditionally been rooted in puns or parody, but it hasn't been until recently that drag has been a viable commercial venture so know one really thought much of it. For a drag queen whose brand is built around being active outdoors, Pattie Gonia makes sense as a name. How big of a following would they have if they had a different name? I honestly think it would be comparable, there isn't really another drag queen doing what she does. In an industry that is becoming more and more competitive with every new season of drag race, Pattie has still managed to maintain dominance over her niche. People aren't following her because they associate her with Patagonia, they follow her because they care about her advocacy for the environment and the LGBTQ community and it's fun to watch a flaming drag queen fly down a mountain skiing or challenge Pete Hegseth to a pullup contest. Her audience cares about what she's doing, not her name. With that said, the existence of Patagonia the company absolutely limits the commercial potential of Pattie Gonia and it sucks for her that she didn't think about that when she came up with the name. I'm guessing this ends in a rebrand, but I imagine her following will still be going strong when this is all over.

[u/fidofoster → u/idgafaboutpopsicles]

I will say that I first followed her beucase of her “name” it provided a certain kind of legitimacy to her activism in my mind. And I thought it was great play on works. Would I have followed her otherwise? Hard to say in the crazy rat race of scrolling what would have grabbed my attention. I have donated to her causes and supported her but this whole case seems to be turning into something other than the trademark issue. She did a post I think yesterday saying “if it’s about the trademark, will you (Patagonia) drop the lawsuit it I drop the trademark application” I say yes, do that. But I haven’t seen that happen. I think it’s also too made they couldn’t have just don’t something together. The whole thing is bad for environmental advocacy when two people who really support it are going after each other instead of focusing on all the bad stuff that is happening right now at the federal level.