KIND Takes Legal Action Against Clif Bar

NEW YORK -- KIND Healthy Snacks filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Clif Bar & Co. seeking to prevent the release of Clif MOJO snack bars. The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that the MOJO packaging mimics the "unique and distinctive" packaging of KIND bars.

According to KIND, the packaging copies several key elements seen on KIND bars, including the rectangular transparent window on the front panel that reveals a large portion of the bar itself; a horizontal stripe along the front of the packaging calling out the flavor name and description of the product line; two vertical color stripes at both ends of the bar; and a bulleted list of key health attributes set against a black background. Additionally, Clif Bar allegedly mimics KIND's products in its choice of flavor names, ingredient combinations and product features.

KIND believes that in response to MOJO losing share to KIND bars, Clif made what appears to be a calculated progression of incremental design changes that grew closer and closer to the trade dress of KIND bars and further from the package design elements that associated MOJO with the Clif brand, KIND stated in a news release.

"Clif is a long-standing and well-respected competitor in the nutritional bar marketplace, which makes this imminent release of a copy-cat product particularly disappointing,” said KIND Founder and CEO. Daniel Lubetzky.

The full complaint is available here.