Comfort Blanket

Druidic lore

Almost as soon as the sun sets on the June summer solstice, some joker pipes up that the nights are drawing in and it’s only 160 shopping to Christmas and all that jazz. To make matters worse, this happens before we’ve even tasted our first properly hot summer’s day of the year. The one where you get in the car, and you can’t touch the steering wheel. Who left chocolate in the glove compartment? We miss it when it’s gone, even if the dog doesn’t. Tragically all too predictable, as is another winter.

To get through winter most of us have routines whether it’s the gin bottle, a wood burner, or a fleecy blanket – perhaps all three. The blanket just got interesting from an intellectual property perspective.

The Hygge

As the Danish call it, has become synonymous with curling up in winter in soft comfy clothing with something sweet and tasty to hand, although in Denmark, it has a far wider non-seasonal meaning. That technicality is for the Scandies to argue over, we see it as creating a personal environment to defeat winter or at least make it bearable. Hold the eggnog and posset, this is way better.

Enter the Speciale Brothers Michael, and Brian. Michael tells the story of his ‘lightbulb’ moment at his brother’s house when he saw his 7-year-old nephew sitting on the sofa in one of Brian’s hoodies. Much too big for him, obviously, but that was the thing. Michael thought:

“…wouldn’t everyone want to feel that feeling right there? That warmth and security, that coziness?”

And so it was that the blanket-hoodie hybrid came into being known as The Comfy.

Within just a few months, prototype in hand, the concept was pitched on TV by the brothers in a programme called “Shark Tank” (think Dragon’s Den, only with a much better title) an angel investor stepped in for a 30% stake, mass production commenced, and the money rolled in…and, er, out. $20m in revenues over the first full trading year. What could possibly go wrong?

Uncomfortable truth

Well, let’s see. A fallout between the brothers and the Dragon – Michael eventually bought them out. Some general mismanagement and bad hires by the look of things. Supply chain issues importing the garments made in China, (1.5 million of them were stuck in Chinese warehouses at one point), an increase in US custom bond demands the company simply couldn’t afford and a lawsuit looking to invalidate its patents on The Comfy. Economic headwinds I think they are called, oh, and some personal stuff from a senior ex-employee alleging the brothers and the dragon were,

“…like pigs feeding from a trough, leaving the company undercapitalized.” 

Nasty and denied, in equal measure. It’s fair to say Michael Speciale’s once $75m-a-year business was struggling a tad. And folk were getting chilly waiting for their Comfy order.

The knock-off market loved this product. You can just imagine the versions available in street markets up and down the land let alone the ‘branded’ copyists like Oodie and Huddle Hoodie.

Michael battened down the hatches, trimmed his business costs and hunkered down for the IP scrap of his life.

“It’s an enormous risk, obviously, on a personal level. But it’s my invention, my product, my trademarks, my patents. If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting the whole way.”

Comfort beating

Not yawning now are you, IP is just as exciting as we’ve always said.

Guess what, there’s a happy ending in the shape of a significant legal victory a couple of months back. The Comfy – “the original wearable blanket” – saw off the patent infringement claims, and the federal jury awarded $18m to Cozy Comfort Company LLC the owner of The Comfy.

Michael Speciale was delighted.

“…the jury’s decision…recognized and affirmed Cozy Comfort’s rights,”

“For the last four years, Cozy Comfort has fought to protect its intellectual property rights to The Comfy from being infringed by the plaintiffs in this case…the jury returned a fair decision in our favour.”

The Comfy lives on, to warm another winter’s day.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

How many shopping days was that…

Murray Fairclough
Development Underwriter
OPUS Underwriting Limited  
+44 (0) 780 145 9940
underwriting@opusunderwriting.com