A Vancouver jeweller who made bracelets engraved with the words “f*** cancer embrace life” following a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma has filed suit against two rivals she says infringed on her trademark.
In a notice of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court March 10, Susan Fiedler alleges Yael Cohen Braun and Julie Greenbaum violated her trademark through their use of the “F*** Cancer” slogan on T-shirts and jewellry.
She’s asking for unspecified damages, and that all F*** Cancer T-Shirts and merchandise still in possession of Braun and Greenbaum either be destroyed or handed over to her.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Fiedler started making F*** Cancer bracelets in October 2008 in response to her diagnosis a year earlier, and began trademarking and commercializing them by May 2008. She said her own organization has donated $200,000 to cancer-related charities through sales of her bracelets.
In 2009, following her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis, Braun founded the F*** Cancer organization in Vancouver. Braun’s F*** Cancer charity sells T-shirts and other wares emblazoned with the name of the organization.
Fiedler claims that in a January 2011 face-to-face meeting, Braun told her she knew about the jeweller’s trademark before launching her own F*** Cancer charity.
When Fiedler asked her to stop using the slogan due to trademark confusion, Braun refused.
Meanwhile, in 2010, Greenbaum also started hosting parties and selling T-shirts using the words “F*** Cancer” after her mother died from ovarian cancer.
The lawsuit claims Fiedler told Greenbaum about her concerns over brand confusion and trademark infringement in August 2013 but Greenbaum did not stop using the term “F*** Cancer” to promote her own charity.
By October 2014, Braun and Greenbaum announced they would be merging their organizations.
And in November 2014, a federal judge rejected Braun's attempt to deny both herself and Fiedler from trademarking the phrase, based on the fact it contains an obscenity.
“Since the defendants, and each of them, starting using the Fiedler Trade-marks, there have been instances of actual confusion by members of the public as to the source of the wares and services,” the lawsuit stated.
“That confusion has been caused by the deliberate deception of the public by the defendants.”
Before merging, Braun’s and Greenbaum’s separate F*** Cancer organizations had raised more than $1 million toward fighting the disease.
Both Fiedler and Braun — who is married to Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun — were Business In Vancouver Forty Under 40 winners in 2003 and 2012, respectively.
Braun and F*** Cancer did not respond to Business in Vancouver's multiple attempts to reach them for comment.
