GREENE COUNTY, Mo. — Texas-based company Buc-ee’s has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against an Ozarks business, Barc-ee’s.
The defendants named in the lawsuit are EJL Acquisitions, LLC and Home Away from Home Dog Training, LLC. The complaint for damages included two trademark infringements, two trademark dilutions, unfair competition and false designation of origin.
Barc-ee’s is located in Marshfield, just a few miles northeast of the Buc-ee’s Travel Center that’s located in Springfield. Barc-ee’s opened in 2024.
Buc-ee’s opened its first location in Missouri on December 11, 2023.
The lawsuit is seeking an injunction to stop all of the alleged trademark infringement, destruction of all infringing products, and an award of any profits by the defendants. The lawsuit is also demanding a jury trial.
In the lawsuit, Buc-ee’s points to the Barc-ee’s logo as mimicking their logo:
For example, the Barc-ee’s Logo copies Buc-ee’s Logo’s use of a friendly smiling cartoon animal oriented within a circle with a yellow background encompassed by a black circle. As other examples, the Barc-ee’s Logo also copies the Buc-ee’s logo with the use of a hat placed on a brown animal with a red tongue and black nose. And in many uses, the Barc-ee’s logo includes the use of the similar Barc-ee’s mark, even with the use of curving word-style, near the logo image, as Buc-ee’s does in many cases when using the Buc-ee’s Word Trademark and the Buc-ee’s Logo together.
Lawsuit filed on March 19 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri Southern Division
It also alleges that the defendants are aware of Buc-ee’s and the trademarks and are “willingly and intentionally proceeding forward with a similar mark and logo despite this knowledge.”
Buc-ee’s also sued a Missouri liquor store in Kimberling City named “Duckees” in December 2024 over trademark infringement.