Fact-Checking the Build-a-Bear Plush Wars: from Viral Frogs to the Squishmallows Legal Feud
Court filings turned contentious as pre-trial discovery dragged into 2025. In an unusual procedural motion, Build-A-Bear asked the court to compel Jazwares to produce physical specimens of roughly 3,000 distinct Squishmallows styles for inspection. Build-A-Bear attorneys argued they needed every commercial variant to test whether Jazwares' trade dress definition held up consistently across its entire catalog, or whether the claim was overly broad.
In April 2025, the presiding federal judge firmly denied Build-A-Bear's motion. The court deemed the delivery of thousands of stuffed toys disproportionate to the needs of the case, calling the request logistically burdensome. Instead, the court instructed the parties to rely on catalog photographs, production spec sheets, and representative physical samples. The decision kept legal arguments centered squarely on basic trade dress principles: whether standard oval shapes and soft fabrics are functional design tropes, or protectable commercial signatures.
