Berkshire-owned Jazwares must face trademark lawsuit over Squishmallows ‘Hug Mees’

By Jonathan Stempel

May 27 (Reuters) – Jazwares, the Berkshire Hathaway-owned maker of Squishmallows, must face a lawsuit claiming its “HugMees” infringed the trademark rights of the rival maker of “HUGME” plush toys, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton said Kidrobot, whose HUGME toys are based on licensed characters such as SpongeBob and Walt Disney’s Lilo and Stitch, can try to prove that HugMees were likely to confuse consumers, calling the case “rife with contested facts.”

The Newark, New Jersey-based judge also said Jazwares did not show that HUGME was generic, saying “there are other ways to describe plush toys and their ability to be hugged, namely: ‘plush,’ ‘soft,’ ‘huggable,’ ‘squishy,’ or ‘squeezable.'”

• Jazwares’ lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Kidrobot and its parent NECA LLC did not immediately respond to similar requests.

• According to court papers, Kidrobot began using HUGME in 2017, two years before Jazwares’ Kelly Toys began selling HugMees, and five years before Kelly Toys registered the “Squishmallows Hug Mees” trademark.

• Kidrobot said it did not know Jazwares sold HugMees until February 2023. It sued in July 2023.

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused in March 2024 to let Kidrobot trademark “HUGME,” saying its similarity to “Squishmallows Hug Mees” and another company’s “Hug Me Now” marks would likely cause confusion.

• Squishmallows were launched in 2017, and went viral on TikTok during the pandemic. In 2022, Berkshire, then led by Warren Buffett, bought Jazwares’ parent company Alleghany.

• Last August, Jazwares ended a lawsuit accusing Build-A-Bear Workshop of copying Squishmallows’ look and feel to create a rival line of plush toys, Skoosherz.

• Kidrobot is based in Hillside, New Jersey, and Jazwares is based in Plantation, Florida.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New YorkEditing by Bill Berkrot)