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Sesame Workshop filed its trademark infringement lawsuit last week

• https://www.thewrap.com

The lawsuit over "The Happytime Murders" trailer featuring "ejaculating puppets" reached an explosive climax on Wednesday, with a judge shooting down Sesame Workshop's claim that the trailer for the Melissa McCarthy film, which bears the tagline "No Sesame. All Street" infringes on the Workshop's trademark.

Sesame Workshop sued STX last week, taking issue with the tagline for the trailer, alleging that the trailer "tarnishes" the Sesame brand.

"Sesame seeks to enjoin Defendants' deliberate effort to appropriate its SESAME STREET mark, and its trusted brand and goodwill, to promote their R-rated movie, The Happytime Murders, by way of a violent and sexually-explicit trailer. SESAME STREET is a registered trademark of Sesame, an organization with a long and storied history of 'helping kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder,'" the suit read. "Defendants' widely-distributed marketing campaign features a just-released trailer with explicit, profane, drug-using, misogynistic, violent, copulating, and even ejaculating puppets, along with the tagline 'NO SESAME. ALL STREET.' Defendants do not own, control or have any right to use the SESAME STREET mark. Instead, they are distributing a trailer that deliberately confuses consumers into mistakenly believing that Sesame is associated with, has allowed, or has even endorsed or produced the movie and tarnishes Sesame's brand."

However, the New York Daily News reported that Judge Vernon Broderick said that the tagline actually distinguished the upcoming film from Sesame Street in a "humorous, pithy way."

TheWrap has reached out to Sesame Workshop for a statement on the judge's decision.


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