Florida lawyer who uses 'Ever Argued With a Woman?' slogan sues law firm for alleged infringement
Image from Shutterstock.
Bartow, Florida, lawyer Melissa Wilson uses the slogan “Ever Argued With a Woman?” and she is not afraid to argue about it.
In a federal suit filed Tuesday, Wilson claims San Antonio lawyer Heather Tessmer of San Antonio and her Tessmer Law Firm are infringing her trademark by using a confusingly similar slogan on billboards and other materials. Tessmer uses the slogan “Ever Argue With a Woman?” without the “d” in “argue.” The San Antonio Express-News and Law.com covered the suit.
Wilson says she has been using the slogan since at least September 2007, and she sent an email telling Tessmer to stop after she learned of the infringement from confused consumers around April 2014. Her lawyers also tried to contact Tessmer, but Tessmer never responded, the suit says.
Wilson says she has been using the slogan since at least September 2007. She filed a federal trademark application to use the slogan for legal services in December 2011, and her trademark was registered in July 2014. The Tessmer Law Firm filed its trademark application with the state of Texas in April 2018, indicating that it first used the slogan in January 2012.
Wilson says she has licensed her trademark for the legal services slogan in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., and was negotiating a license with another lawyer in Texas, the suit says.
The potential Texas licensee, Stephanie May of San Angelo, is represented by Dallas lawyer Daniel Mehler. He told the Express-News this his client heard from both Wilson and Tessmer after she erected a billboard with the slogan, “Ever Argue With a Woman?”
The slogan is no longer on May’s billboard. “She was like, ‘I don’t want any part of litigation,’ so she changed her billboard,” Mehler said.
