Jury Asks Impossible Foods to Pay Influencer $3.25M in Trademark Lawsuit

Impossible Foods has infringed two trademarks held by influencer Joel Runyon and his company Impossible HQ, a jury decided, awarding the latter $3.25M in damages.

Plant-based meat leader Impossible Foods has lost a trademark lawsuit over the use of the ‘Impossible’ name with endurance influencer Joel Runyon and his company, Impossible X (doing business as Impossible HQ).

An eight-person jury in the US District Court for the Northern District of California unanimously issued a verdict in Runyon’s favour, finding that Impossible Foods wilfully and maliciously infringed two of the entrepreneur’s registered trademarks.

It instructed Impossible Foods to pay Runyon $1.5M in compensatory damages and another $1.75M in punitive damages. The Impossible HQ owner will now also seek recovery of his attorneys’ fees and court costs, after the case ran for nearly 5 years.

“While we respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict, we remain confident in our position as a business and brand, and we’re evaluating all available options for moving forward,” an Impossible Foods spokesperson told Green Queen when asked whether it planned to appeal the verdict and how it affected the brand.

“Our focus is on continuing to build the Impossible Foods brand as the best plant-based protein company and giving consumers the clarity they deserve in the marketplace.”

How Impossible vs Impossible unfolded

Runyon had been using the ‘Impossible’ name for his lifestyle and fitness blog since 2010, before evolving it into a business and registering several federal trademarks in endurance athletics, apparel, health and nutrition, sporting events, and other areas.

In 2013, Impossible Foods sought to rebrand from its then-name, Maraxi, to its current name. In the years that followed, the brand became a global powerhouse in the plant-based industry through its meat alternatives.

It was in 2020 when Impossible Foods applied for a formative trademark for the ‘Impossible’ name for recipes, ingredients and cooking information, as well as an online database featuring this information.

This led Runyon to send a cease-and-desist letter to Impossible Foods in 2020, asking it to limit the use of the ‘Impossible’ name to “plant-based food substitutes” and opposing its bid to register the trademark for recipes.

Impossible Foods then sued Impossible HQ in 2021, seeking a declaration that it had superior rights to the name and did not infringe on Runyon’s trademarks. But the court in Northern California dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, finding that the dispute didn’t relate to Impossible HQ’s California activities because Runyon had already left the state by the time the case was filed.

An appeals court reinstated the case in 2023 and ruled that the two companies could refile their claims, reasoning that Impossible HQ was originally founded in San Diego and thus fell under California’s jurisdiction.

At trial, a jury then ruled against Impossible Foods, which has now lost two trademark battles in two regions in as many years.

Impossible Foods loses two trademark battles after several victories

The jurors in the Californian court found Impossible Foods “willfully infringed and acted with malice, fraud, and oppression” in violating Runyon’s trademark rights, according to a press release issued by his company’s attorneys.

Further, it stated that the plant-based meat maker infringed Impossible HQ’s unregistered trademarks for apparel and cookbooks, and rejected Impossible HQ’s bid to invalidate four of those trademarks.

“We’re grateful to the Court and the jury for the time they have invested to help us get to this just result,” said Runyon. “The jury’s verdict sends a clear message that trademarks are not just pieces of paper and a brand is more than just the name of a company – they stand for something, they matter, and they can’t be willfully trampled.”

Last year, Impossible Foods lost a four-year-long trademark battle with Impossible Bakers, a Spanish bakery, with an EU court finding that the latter’s brand is distinct enough from the plant-based meat company and can continue using the ‘Impossible’ name.

These two cases are a departure from Impossible Foods’s otherwise strong track record in IP battles. In 2020, it won a case against Nestlé’s ‘Incredible Burger’, which was renamed ‘Sensational Burger’ after a Dutch court found the words ‘Impossible’ and ‘Incredible’ too similar in sight, sound and meaning.

And in 2024, the company settled a patent lawsuit with Boston-based Motif Foodworks and took over its heme business, which shut down days later.

Last year, the European Patent Office’s Board of Appeals reinstated a key patent it had revoked in 2023, which related to the heme protein and flavour precursors in its flagship burger. The company is hoping to launch its beef portfolio in Europe imminently.

This latest trademark decision comes weeks after Peter McGuinness left his role as CEO of Impossible Foods to take the helm at Bel North America. The company is currently being led by a three-member executive team comprising chief legal and operating officer Jason Gao, chief demand officer Meredith Madden, and chief supply officer Robert Haas.