Pillsbury Doughboy takes hard line on same-name bakery

SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

The Pillsbury Doughboy didn’t go soft when a small new bakery in New Mexico donned its signature name.

Minneapolis-based General Mills Inc., which owns the Pillsbury brand, buried Albuquerque, New Mexico’s formerly named Doughboy’s Bake Shoppe in so much legal paperwork that the mom-and-pop shop, which opened in January, took down $10,000 worth of signage without a fight, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

Two weeks after it opened, owners Claudia and Mike Milladge reportedly received a cease-and-desist letter from General Mills over the “doughboy” trademark — it was just the beginning, they told reporters.

Because of legal cost, the bakery couldn’t afford to fight it, the owners said. Instead, they applied for a trademark but were ultimately denied, according to reports.

This left them with only one other option: change the name.

“We felt so bullied,” Claudia Milladge told the Albuquerque Journal. “The first reaction is to throw a fit, but what can you do against a corporation like that?”