Eat Square – a Wiltshire food company that produces and sells square-shaped pies – has been threatened with legal action by a competitor after it started to advertise its “square pies” earlier this year.
Square Pie, a rival pie maker based in London, had already registered the “square pies” phrase as a trademark, so the company took legal action to ensure its rights were protected.
Launched in 2014, Eat Square was based on the concept of offering ‘square meals’ that were literally formed in a square shape, which included its range of pies.
Alex Joll, from the company, said: “We have to stop calling them square pies, so from now on they’re just pies.”
“We’ve taken every reference to square pies off our website – there’s pictures of square pies but we don’t call them square pies.
“We’ll also be finding out next month if we can keep our name Eat Square, but we’ll keep making square pies and that’s the main thing.”
Mr Joll stated that it had been a surprise to receive the letter that first told him to stop using terms including “square pie”.
However, Martin Dewey, whose rival business owns the copyright, said that while efforts had been made to informally assert their intellectual property rights no response was received, which is why legal action was taken.
Mr Dewey added that his company had no objection to Eat Square or any other company producing and selling square-shaped pies, and that the dispute was only due to “branding and associated language” protected by a number of trademarks.