GIRL SCOUTS CLAIMS BOY SCOUTS IS UNFAIRLY RECRUITING GIRLS

Organization says BSA’S efforts have caused confusion

The Girl Scouts are in a “highly damaging” recruitment war with the Boy Scouts after the latter opened its core services to girls, leading to marketplace confusion and some girls unwittingly joining the Boy Scouts, lawyers for the century-old Girl Scouts organization claim in court papers.

The competition has intensified as the Boy Scouts of America organization has unfairly recruited girls, according to claims in legal briefs filed on behalf of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America.

The lawyers filed papers in Manhattan federal court Thursday to repel an effort by the Boy Scouts to toss out before trial a trademark infringement lawsuit the Girl Scouts filed in 2018.

Last month, lawyers for the Boy Scouts asked a judge to reject claims that the Boy Scouts cannot use “scouts” and “scouting” in its recruitment of girls without infringing trademarks.

The Boy Scouts contend that “undisputed evidence” proves that the Boy Scouts have used “Scout” alone for more than 100 years and in connection with the marketing of some co-ed youth services for nearly 50 years.

The Boy Scouts on Saturday pointed to legal arguments in which it blames the Girl Scouts for reacting to its expansion plans with “anger and alarm” and said the Girl Scouts launched a “ground war” to spoil plans by the Boy Scouts to include more girls.

In a statement, the Boy Scouts said it expanded program offerings for girls “after years of requests from families” who wanted their boys and girls both participating in its character and leadership programs or for other reasons, including a desire to become an Eagle Scout.

In its filing, the Girl Scouts said the Boy Scouts’ marketing of expanded services for girls was “extraordinary and highly damaging to Girl Scouts” and had set off an “explosion of confusion.“

“As a result of Boy Scouts’ infringement, parents have mistakenly enrolled their daughters in Boy Scouts thinking it was Girl Scouts,” the lawyers said, adding that this never occurred before 2018.

The Girl Scouts organization cited a narrow subset of documents turned over by 19 of 250 local Boy Scout councils, including evidence that registration fees sometimes were returned to parents who mistakenly thought they registered girls for the Girl Scouts.

The organization started admitting girls into the Cub Scouts in August 2018, and Scouts BSA — the rebranded program for 11- to 17-year-olds — began accepting girls in February 2019, lawyers said.

Afterward, Boy Scouts councils and volunteers began using Girl Scouts’ intellectual property to recruit girls, the lawyers wrote.

Girl Scouts lawyers cited incidents of Boy Scouts councils in Illinois and Massachusetts admitting using Girl Scout slogans, trademarks and photos in recruitment flyers, and Ohio Boy Scouts using the Girl Scouts trademark to try to get a local newspaper to write an article, suggesting a story titled “Boy and Girl Scouts Looking for Members” even though the recruitment involved only the Boy Scouts, the lawyers said.

Lawyers for Girls Scouts say the Boy Scouts have placed the blame for such incidents on individuals or partner organizations.