There Are Thousands of La Michoacana Paleta Shops, but Two Companies Want the Name All to Themselves

It’s one of those stiflingly humid summer afternoons in Detroit, and Nevería La Michoacana is packed with Detroiters in search of sweet, cool refuge. Millennials are gulping down aguas frescas, hijab-wearing teens choose toppings for their ice cream sundaes, and young Chicana moms and abuelas alike help their little ones order paletas, the quintessential Mexican ice cream pop.

But while it’s easy to trace paletas back to Tocumbo, tracking the La Michoacana name isn’t so simple. Andrade and Alcázar each relocated to the capital at different times, and it’s unclear who first used the word to sell paletas. And because the Michoacana name grew casually between families and friends, the brand itself wasn’t trademarked until decades after the first paleterias started opening in Mexico City.

Meanwhile the Gutierrez brothers’ Paleteria La Michoacana continued to grow. In 2002, Ignacio Gutierrez established a California corporation known as Paleteria La Michoacana, Inc. and trademarked the phrase “La Indita Michoacana” along with its logo design: an illustration of a doll with braided black hair, dressed in traditional Michoacán attire and holding an ice cream cone.

With that in mind, in 2007, Prolacto approached the United States Patent and Trademark Office asking that the office cancel Paleteria La Michoacana’s trademark for the phrase “La Indita Michoacana” and the accompanying design. Although thousands of paleterias use the name Michoacana, Stephen Anderson, a lawyer for Prolacto, claims the Paleteria La Michoacana used deceptive tactics to try to tie the company to the original Tocumbo paleterias.

Paleteria La Michoacana appealed that decision, and up until 2018, both companies went back and forth making their respective cases in courts in D.C., Florida, and North Carolina. In August 2018 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

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