Total Croc: Porsche suing popular shoe company over naming rights?

Porsche AG is known for vigorously defending its intellectual property. It's understandable, as the company has spent more than half a century building its performance-oriented automotive brand around design patents, logos, and the company's familiar vehicle nomenclature. Crocs, Inc., on the other hand, is a shoe manufacturer credited with introducing the world to low-cost injection-molded foam footwear. Crocs does not build cars... um, thankfully.
What Crocs did do was name its popular sandal the "Cayman" (pictured at right). Of course, this set off all the alarms at Porsche as that name is already trademark registered by the automaker for its two-seat sports coupe. What followed next was expected... in mid-May, Crocs received a letter from Porsche notifying them of the alleged trademark infringement. At the end of July, Porsche filed a notice of injunction in German courts against the European use of the Cayman name by Crocs.

While we realize that few of our readers would ever confuse a pair of Crocs' Cayman with the Porsche Cayman, one has to wonder if Porsche is taking this a bit too far. Rumor has it that the Cayman Islands in the western Caribbean are monitoring the situation and already working on their own legal defense... Hat tip to Freddy for the lead!

[Source: Deadline Watch]