Grumpy Cat suing coffee maker for $1.8 million over Grumppuccinno copyright violations

The internet’s favorite sourpuss could be on the verge of winning a tidy sum from a California coffee maker.

In a lawsuit pending in California courts, Grumpy Cat, or rather, the Cat’s owners, have claimed that Los Angeles-based Grenade Beverage had run afoul of an agreement that let them use the cat’s visage to market a line of coffee drinks.

“Ironically, while the world-famous feline Grumpy Cat and her valuable brand are most often invoked in a tongue-and-cheek fashion, Defendants’ despicable misconduct here has actually given Grumpy Cat and her owners something to be grumpy about,” reads the original lawsuit.

While the lawsuit was originally filed last year, the owners of Grenade did not respond to the claim, and a judge this summer therefore moved toward entering a default judgement in favor of Grumpy Cat’s humans. Said humans last week filed a proposed motion to support such a ruling, which was spotted by TorrentFreak.

According to the lawsuit, Grumpy Cat (the company!) licensed the brand in 2013 to be used for the ice drink “Grumppuccino.”

However, Grenade allegedly went beyond that agreement and started selling Grumpy Cat Roasted Coffee. In addition, Grumpy Cat claims that Grenade failed to provide an accounting of sales and profits and failed to pay a percentage of Grumppuccino profits, as well as selling unauthorized Grumppuccino T-shirts.

Grumpy Cat says it is owed $150,000 for four violations and added that the amount should be tripled, under laws for copyright violations. In addition, the company wants all profits from Grumpy Cat-related products that were sold by Grenade, plus $15,000 in legal fees.

While Grenade’s website is down, it does still have a Twitter account that hasn’t been used since last December.

https://www.instagram.com/p/_VZcq0Rh11/

SOURCE: TorrentFreak