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Old 30-09-2007, 02:50 PM posted to rec.gardens
Jim Kingdon Jim Kingdon is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jun 2007
Posts: 167
Default David vs. Goliath

Sad to say, Scott's appears to have crushed Terracycle.

I don't read it that way. Terracycle gets the free publicity of
having been sued, and then gets to settle pretty cheaply. And both
sides get to avoid all the lawyer bills and pointlessness of
continuing to fight.

Unlike many lawsuit settlements, the terms are public, and are online
at http://suedbyscotts.com/ (for 3 months after the settlement, after
which the website will go down). Terracycle gets to sell off their
existing inventory with the contested package design (as long as they
can do it within 6 months). There are some limits on what they can
claim about scientific studies unless they prove it (I haven't been
following the litigation closely enough to know exactly what their
claims had been).

Like I say, I haven't looked at the thing closely enough to say
whether each and every thing which Terracycle agreed to is actually
"right". But none of this will harm their business much. I don't see
any of the limits on designing their packaging, their advertising
claims, etc, as being crippling ones.