If it quacks like a duck ...
Sue it.
That's what Norcross-based amphibious tour operator Ride the Ducks International is doing to a rival in a federal district court in California.
According to Ride the Ducks, a competitor, Bay Quackers LLC, has been providing passengers on its tour vehicles in San Francisco with a kazoo-like noisemaker that sounds like a duck. Passengers blow them at bystanders in a bit of interactive fun.
The sound also is similar — too similar, the suit suggests — to the noisemaker known as the Wacky Quacker that is used by passengers on Ride the Duck's tours, which operate in a half-dozen markets, including Stone Mountain Park and San Francisco.
Duck tours travel a land route such as a city's downtown streets before plunging into a nearby body of water. The tour vehicles, which look somewhat like decorated buses, are in some cases carry-overs from World War II amphibious troop carriers. In other cases, they are recently built look-alikes.
The suit seeks to protect the "sound mark" held by Ride the Ducks, the auditory equivalent of trademark protection. Ride the Ducks obtained the federal mark more than a decade ago, it says.
Although rare, sound marks are given for unique sounds identified with specific businesses, such as MGM's lion's roar.
"It's critical to our product," said Ride the Ducks vice president Bob Salmon. "It's one of the things that makes our duck tours different. With duck tours in general, there's a lot of confusion between the types of products, and this is one of the tools we use to differentiate ourselves."
Ride the Ducks is actually the newcomer to the San Francisco duck tour market, having motored into the Bay Area in July. Bay Quackers has been running its tours there for a few years. But Ride the Ducks had the government-approved sound mark.
A Bay Quackers employee said the company's owner does not want to comment on the suit, which asks that it immediately quit its quacking.
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