Small Words

First, some background:

Patagonia, Inc. filed a lawsuit in January against drag performer Wynn Wiley for pursuing a patent for her stage name, “Pattie Gonia”. The outdoor apparel brand feels the association with the performer may hurt its brand image. 

Pattie Gonia has built a large community across social media platforms, including 1.8 million followers on Instagram. Her content includes political parody and LGBTQ+ advocacy – but Pattie is most known for backpacking in drag. 

Pattie founded a nonprofit called The Outdoorist Oath, and says she has raised $3.7 million for environmental conservation using her drag persona.  

Is “Pattie Gonia” IP infringement? 

Patagonia, Inc. is hoping to convince a court that Pattie is in the wrong for seeking the sole rights to her stage name. Patagonia, Inc. feels the name “Pattie Gonia” is referential and, taken along with commonalities in their philanthropy, they are concerned the stage name will be confused with their brand. You can gain a general understanding of IP laws, what they protect, and what they permit, from a simple checklist. Feel free to check out these checklists for IP and Fair Use and decide for yourself if “Pattie Gonia” is IP infringement.

As for me, I’m not convinced there is much similarity between a whimsical drag performer and a brand that sells camo cargos and outdoor gear. Pattie Gonia strikes me as more camp than camping, and I wouldn’t have any trouble distinguishing the brands, even if Pattie is out there in the same mountains on Patagonia’s logo.  

Does Patagonia have a good case? 

It does not bode well for Patagonia that it’s brand is named after a region of South America. Slapping a trademark on a geographic treasure and calling it your intellectual property is a little tacky and also, unsurprisingly, harder to defend in court. 

Nonetheless, Patagonia’s strongest non-legal argument in my non-legal opinion hinges on Pattie creating her stage name as pun on the brand name. But if the brand is a reference to a generic phrase (like a geographical region), then “Pattie Gonia” could also be a pun on that region (and not the brand). The semanticist in me would argue that being a pun on the brand necessitates that the stage name is also a pun on the region. So, whether or not Patty intended the pun to reference the brand, it will always be implicitly or explicitly referencing the place name. 

Incidentally, Pattie is not the only one to reference the region in outdoorsy products. The brand Milestar makes a line of off-roading truck tires called “Patagonia Line,” designed for the outdoorsy types to enjoy the scenery. The brand features mountain imagery and a guaranteed overlap with Patagonia, Inc. consumers within the same market. To my knowledge, Patagonia, Inc. hasn’t tried to slap them with an injunction despite statements saying how much they hate to sue Paddy but can’t “selectively choose to enforce [our IP] rights”. 

The irony of Patagonia, Inc.’s statements:

Patagonia, Inc. is lowkey owned by a piece of paper. Sure, it might be hard to hold a contract accountable for its hypocrisy, but a legal entity is as good an agent as anyone, so here it goes.  

In 2022, the previous owners of the company committed the brand to a trust – so, in a sense, the trust document is the decision maker for Patagonia. Trusts are complicated, and these legal documents are written to be specific and tailored to the wishes of the grantor(s). Which is to say, without the trust document, we don’t have a lot of insight into what drives Patagonia, Inc. Luckily, the founder, Yvon Chouinard, has left us a letter which you can read [ here ]. Yvon writes, “Earth is now our only shareholder.” Earth, not him, or his family, or members of the board, will benefit from the sales of the company. The idea is as beautiful as it is poetic. Corporate says it more dryly, “We’re in business to save our home planet. The Patagonia Purpose Trust ensures the company’s commitment to its purpose forever.”

In her public letter to Patagonia, Inc., Pattie speaks highly of the company’s leadership (you can read her letter here) and I’ll follow Pattie’s lead, give Yvon the benefit of the doubt, and believe that the 87-year-old means for his company to do good after he dies.

But the poetic words and business pledges made by Yvon and his company ring a little hollow to me. After all, one of the main functions of a trust is to provide for one’s (human) family and have a say in the goings-on of one’s estate after death. Looking into what the company’s site says about the changeover and the organization of the company, it seems the trust isn’t as much about the planet as Patagonia, Inc. says it is. But it was a nice idea.

The main problem with a trust guiding the ethics of a corporation is that a trust document is not a discerning, thinking, feeling entity. It is a legal entity, and frankly, it doesn’t give a fig about the planet.   

And this is how we get wacky results in law, where a document’s intent gets warped by those who carry out the wishes of the document. It doesn’t add up that a trust, intended as a stand-in for an environmentalist, should choose to use its resources to sue, of all things, an environmentalist. Especially when she has not caused demonstrable damage to the company. But here we are.

So, why doesn’t Patagonia want Pattie Gonia to get her Pattie patent?

Pattie sounds like the poster child for a company devoted to saving the planet, actually. She’s funny, beautiful, popular, and they insist she’s on brand! But instead of reaching out for brand deals, the company has been bullying Pattie for months in an attempt to stop her from trademarking her stage name. Why sue Pattie and not say, the tire company?

I’ll wager the company doesn’t want to be seen at the party with a queen. This feels to me like a company owned by a piece of paper expressing human bias. Patagonia’s directive to save the planet aside, It’s not enough for a company to be “good” – it can’t be good. People got to be good. And I’m not seeing many good people from Patagonia’s side involved in this dispute.

So good luck to Pattie! I’m rooting for her David and Goliath moment. Goliath felled with a slingshot, David triumphantly standing over him in 7-inch stilettos, her head crowned in curls. If this were a drag performance, it would be iconic!