Pirate Joe’s is an popular (yet unauthorized) re-seller of Trader Joe’s products. It is recently sued by Trader Joe’s for trademark infringement, unfair competition, false designation of origin, and false advertising. But why would Trader Joe’s ever be suing one of their best customers?

Apart from food safety and competition, Trader Joe’s real concern is about their trademarks — customers might be confused whether PJ is affiliated to TJ and might feel mad when they’re being charged a few more bucks for TJ’s products.

However, since the store appearance of PJ is totally different from that of TJ and PJ is using “pirate” in its name, customers are not very likely to mistake the two stores. As a matter of fact, it is a sweet deal for TJ because TJ now is able to sell a lot of its product in a market where it would otherwise sell nothing, given the fact that there’s no TJ in Canada currently.

“We’d prefer it if they just opened in Vancouver, put everybody out of their misery,” Hallatt, PJ’s owner, said. According to Hallatt, PJ is only stocking what TJ lovers want and what they cannot get in Canada, making some profits that could just cover the cost of transportation and helps.

—————————–

Sources:

http://www.piratejoes.ca

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/10/04/trader-joes-loses-lawsuit-michael-hallatt-pirate-joes_n_4041755.html