washington the phrase dog poop was uttered several times on wednesday in the hallowed chamber of the us supreme court as justices seemed baffled in a case concerning a squeaky chew toy for pets that closely resembles the famous black label on jack daniels whiskeythe chew toy named bad spaniels has the distinctive shape of the distillerys blacklabeled square whiskey bottles but with added toilet humorwhile the tennessee whiskey has an alcohol content of 40 percent bad spaniels is allegedly made of 43 percent poo that may end up on tennessee carpetsdeploring an attack on its image the iconic distillery sued arizonabased vip products marketer of the chew toy and alleged harm to its trademark after several twists and turns the case has now ended up in front of the supreme courtthe dispute may have wider ramifications for how trademark law is applied in the united states as the courts nine judges weigh whether free speech trumps intellectual property rightsthe matter does seem to me to present serious first amendment issues that protect freedom of expression justice samuel alito saidvip which also sells fake cans of canine cola says it is shielded behind the right to parody which authorizes infringements of copyright in the cultural spherethere are a lot of products that take themselves too seriously attorney bennett cooper told the court on behalf of vip productsjack daniels advertised itself in a serious way that jack is everyones friend and bad spaniels is a parody playful in comparing jack to mans other best friendjustice elena kagan wasnt immediately convincedmaybe i just have no sense of humor but whats the parody she asked you use the mark of a large company and say well guys they must take themselves too seriously because theyre a big company i had a dog the spirits maker which is owned by kentuckybased brownforman corp took legal action in 2014 when the dog toy appeared on the market after an initial court victory jack daniels lost on appealas the case made its way to the supreme court jack daniels was backed by other big american corporations such as food giant campbell whose soup cans were featured in andy warhols famous paintings and clothes makers patagonia and levi strauss who argued that such humor can hurt their reputationsthis case involves a dog toy that copies jack daniels trademark and associates its whiskey with dog poop said lisa blatt the distillerys attorneyshe argued that the parodying company did too much copying from jack daniels and not enough to distinguish the two products leading to consumer confusionits not whether you get the joke but whether you get that somebody other than the brand was making the joke blatt saidalito suggested that the joke wasnt hard to graspif somebody approached the distillery ceo and suggested the company produce a dog toy with a similar label and a similar name but filled with dog urine you think the ceo is going to say thats a great idea were