Squishmallows vs. Build-A-Bear, the cutest legal scuffle ever, is heating up

polygon.com:

Squishmallows owner Kelly Toys is taking Build-A-Bear to court in what may be the cutest legal battle ever. Both Kelly Toys and Build-A-Bear filed respective lawsuits on Monday after Build-A-Bear started selling its Skoosherz line of plushies this year. For Kelly Toys, the problem is that Skoosherz look too much like its Squishmallows. To that, Build-A-Bear responded: You can’t trademark cute animals!

Kelly Toys filed its lawsuit in California, while Build-A-Bear filed one in Missouri. In the first lawsuit, Kelly Toys lawyers outline the Squishmallows timeline: They were released in 2016 with distinctive designs — they’re oval, usually animals, and have cute faces. Most importantly, they’re very soft and squishable. (Kelly Toys, by the way, is owned by Jazwares, which acquired the Squishmallow maker in 2020. Jazwares itself is owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway.) Quickly, they became popular collectibles, and were later named one of the top-selling toys of 2022.

Squishmallow culture has been covered in the New York Times, and major celebrities like Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian collect ‘em, according to the lawsuit. [Disclosure: I have an embarrassingly large Pokémon Squishmallow collection. See above — but two are missing, big Gengar and medium Togepi.] The company also revealed that its Squishmallows line, of which there are more than 3,000, made $200 million in 2022, a 300% increase year over year. So, when Build-A-Bear first revealed its Skoosherz line — a departure from its in-store, customizable stuffed animals — the first thing people did was compare them to Squishmallows.

You can see why, no? Build-A-Bear said in its lawsuit that they aren’t copycats — they’re round, pillow-like versions of its own original plush toys. “Rather than competing fairly in the marketplace by creating its own unique concepts and product lines, Defendant Build-A-Bear, a company worth over 300 million dollars, decided that it would be easier to simply copy, imitate, and