No. 11 - Smiley

If you've ever been to a Wal-Mart you've probably seen the smiling face on the left. But do you know where the smiling one on the right comes from? If you guessed Eat'n Park, give yourself a sticker. Eat'n Park is a family restaurant chain with about 100 locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The franchise began in Pittsburgh in 1949 and is well-known for its Smiley Cookies, which are frosted sugar cookies with smiley faces drawn on them in icing. What I did not know is that Smiley Cookie has an actual federal trademark registration -- U.S. Trademark No. 1,809,410. It was registered in 1993 by Eat'n Park for "baked goods; namely, cookies." I came across this little nugget of information when I read today that Eat'n Park is suing Texas-based Crumb Corps who also sells smiley-faced cookies as part of its mail-order "cookie bouquets." The company has been in business since 1983 and began franchising in 1987. Crumb Corps refuses to stop drawing smiling faces on its cookies. Game on! Let's waste resources arguing about who has the right to sell happy cookies.