Ice cream lovers can rest a little easier, now that Mister
Softee has shut down an unscrupulous quartet of competitors.
The Mister Softee company sells ice cream from trucks that play
a jingle to announce their presence. It appears that a gang
of rogues in New York was using ice cream trucks that looked very
similar to Mister Softee trucks in attempt to get business from ice
cream fans who were either not sharp-eyed enough to notice that it
wasn't a real Mister Softee truck, or who didn't
much care. Since much of the clientele is probably little
kids, it's a good bet that a lot of the customer base falls
into both of those groups.
According to the claims in the lawsuit, Mister Softee operates
through franchisees – it grants independent operators the
right to use its trademarks and business methods and to use
specially-designed "mobile trucks" to sell ice cream and
related treats. (I am assuming they discovered early on that
"mobile trucks" were much more
