Elise Macmillan was 11 years old when she co-founded her Denver-based company, the Chocolate Farm, in 1998. Her brother, Evan, was 13.

In 1999, the siblings received an Entrepreneur of the Year Award from accounting giant Ernst & Young. This year, they’ve received something else: a cease-and-desist demand from Kansas City, Mo.-based Russell Stover Candies. ...

Their beef? The word “sampler.” Seems The Chocolate Farms sells a Sampler and Russel Stover (which owns Whitmans) trademarked the term a long time ago. Seems to me the word sampler is generic and descriptive which means it should not be allowed as a trademark (although the phrase “Whitman’s Sampler” might be okay).

This seems to be a case of lawyers venturing into territory that might make legal sense but is not common sensical. I say “Cease and Desist, Russell Stover: you might win this battle but you are losers in the PR war!”

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