Takeaways from J.M. Smucker Company v. Trader Joe’s Company for brand owners regarding trade dress enforcement

Dupes and generic brands, which were once seen as inferior alternatives to name-brand products, have become more prevalent in the marketplace—and more popular among consumers. The increasing popularity of dupes has pushed retailers to cash in on the stylized designs of successful name brands and designer fashion products, instead of creating original designs. While many dupes occur in the fashion, cosmetics, and furniture industries, J.M. Smucker Company’s recent complaint, filed on October 13, 2025, in the Ohio federal court against Trader Joe’s, for infringement of the Uncrustables trade dress, shows that food products are not immune to the rise of dupes.

Smucker’s complaint states that Smucker invested more than a billion dollars over the past 20 years to build the goodwill associated with the Uncrustables brand, including the trademark-registered product design of its round crustless sandwich with a crimpled circumference. Smucker’s complaint includes claims of trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution, claiming Trader Joe’s round, crustless sandwich and packaging trades off the Uncrustables brand’s goodwill by deceiving consumers into thinking the Trader Joe’s product is affiliated with Smucker.

Dupes, like Trader Joe’s crustless sandwich, present a uniquely difficult challenge for brand owners, as dupes usually do not copy the brand’s word marks or logos, but rather the product design and packaging of the branded product: the trade dress. Though trademark and trade dress infringement are both determined under the likelihood of confusion test, proving the existence of protectable trade dress in a product’s design—also referred to as its product configuration—can be harder than proving the existence of trademark rights in words and logo designs.

To claim protectable product configuration trade dress, a brand owner must prove, first, that features of the product design are not functional and, second, that those features have “acquired distinctiveness,” meaning that consumers recognize the non-functional features of the product as identifying a specific producer rather than simply the product itself. Given these hurdles of proving protectable product configuration trade dress, brand owners may struggle to protect these rights. If owners fail to effectively police these rights, they will forfeit them to the marketplace as competitors flood the market with dupes, and the features cease to become associated with only the original producer.

One thing that savvy product configuration trade dress owners can do to help them guard their rights is to seek trademark registration for their trade dress. Indeed, Smucker’s did just that, obtaining a US trademark registration for a depiction of its product missing a “bite,” which it has asserted against Trader Joe’s. Given that Smucker’s registration has become incontestable, Trader Joe’s may be unable to challenge the validity of the mark due to a lack of distinctiveness. It may challenge the validity of the Uncrustables trade dress as functional by arguing that the shape and crimping on the sandwich or the missing “bite” serve a functional purpose. Still, Smucker’s registration puts it on a stronger footing in the case, because Trader Joe’s will have the burden of proof to invalidate it. In addition, according to the complaint, Smucker’s has successfully policed its registered product configuration rights through other enforcement actions to help prevent widespread use of its product design, which could undermine its case.

Smucker’s actions to protect its Uncrustables brand highlight the importance of product configuration, trade dress registration, and enforcement. If brands do not take early, aggressive stances against infringers, they risk their trade dress becoming commonplace, as dupes erode their intellectual property rights. Aggressive protection of a brand’s trade dress also sends a warning to potential competitors that infringing products will be challenged, which potentially deters further dupes from entering the marketplace.

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