Dong Phuong Bakery Inc., purveyor of one of New Orleans' most sought-after king cakes, is locked in a bitter legal dispute that has meant the Village de l'Est dough puncher has had to ditch all of the distinctive brand imagery that customers have become familiar with in recent years.

Gone are the bright pastel colors and New Orleans streetscapes that decorated its king cake boxes and the sides of its delivery vans. Gone also is the much-praised website in which an animated delivery man on a bicycle, wearing a traditional Vietnamese "leaf hat," would follow along as customers made their choices.

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A Dong Phuong bakery delivery truck has had its colorful and distinctive logo and artwork removed and now sports a generic label on Friday, June 18, 2021. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The Dong Phuong logo, in flowing Vietnamese-style calligraphy, has also been wiped away.

Taking their place, for now, is generic packaging and lettering and a minimalist website with a menu, an order button and not much else.

The changes stem from a common and often costly misunderstanding for small businesses: the ownership of intellectual property when an outside firm — such as a graphic artist, a brand consultant or a web designer — creates logos and other key marketing materials.

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A temporary logo has been designed for the Dong Phuong Bakery on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East Friday, June 18, 2021. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana earlier this month, Linh Tran Garza, the bakery's president and the daughter of its founders, alleged that The Gemini Society, the firm behind its 2017 brand and marketing upgrade, secretly filed in November for ownership of the DP Bakeshop trademark that Dong Phuong has been using for more than four years.

Garza said that when she refused Gemini's demands this year to increase the percentage of e-commerce and wholesale sales she was paying them, the Austin, Texas-based design firm then demanded she pay high licensing fees or cease using all the logos and other branded materials.

"The fees are so exorbitant that it was impossible for us to afford," Garza said.

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Dong Phuong bakery customers leave with bake goods in bags where the logo is being phased out Friday, June 18, 2021. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The dispute has the added poignancy of pitting former friends against each other. Garza went with The Gemini Society because the husband-and-wife who run the company were her husband's longtime friends. That meant much of the relationship was done on a handshake with no formal contracts.

"We put a lot of faith in the fact that our friends would treat us fairly," Garza said via email. 

After difficulties involving distribution of its king cakes, including an allegation of "cake scalping" posted on the internet, Dong Phuong (1…

John Blevins, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, said the case offers a warning to small businesses when it comes to their intellectual property, an area where many lack expertise.

"This is a clear example of what happens when you don't clarify the intellectual property upfront," Blevins said. "It's sort of like a marriage: you don't think about the prenup when things are going well, and it can all end up being very costly."

The lawsuit asserts that Gemini has no right to claim the DP Bakeshop trademark because under intellectual property law, only the company using it in commerce has the right to ownership. It also seeks to prevent Gemini from trying to exert copyright over a "laundry list" of generic menu terms, such as "Banh Mi Box Meal" and "Build Your Own Baked Goods Box."

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Baker Eliza Williams makes pastries at Dong Phuong bakery on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East Friday, June 18, 2021. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

Nelly and Dezi Ramirez, owners of Gemini, argue that they are the wronged parties.

"We put our heart and soul into this for more than four years, and we've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Dezi Ramirez. "It was always on the understanding that we were business partners and doing it for 'friends and family' rates."

"We always retained ownership of the licensing rights," Ramirez said.

He said Gemini's claim over the DP Bakeshop trademark is based on their licensing deal with Dong Phuong, similar to the the way Coca-Cola licenses its brand to bottling companies.

Both sides agree that Gemini was paid about $300,000 for its work since 2017, but the Ramirezes say that came nowhere near covering their costs and didn't reflect their role in building the brand.

According to Nelly Ramirez, "The Gemini Society brought Dong Phuong's immigration story front and center and helped tie in the bakery's East New Orleans destination."

Dong Phuong in March 2005

Customers enter the Dong Phuong Restaurant and Bakery on Chef Menteur Highway in this March, 2005, file photo.

Dong Phuong was opened in 1982 as Dong Phuong Oriental Bakery by Linh Tran Garza's parents, De and Huong Tran. They had immigrated to the country with their young family two years earlier, after spending a year in a Malaysian refugee camp in the wake of the communist takeover of Vietnam.

The New Orleans East bakery that began with traditional Vietnamese pastries grew to produce French bread, king cakes and other products. Garza took over in 2004, after the death of her father, and she says she has worked to continue expanding the company.

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Dong Phoung Oriental Bakery owner Huong Tran, left, puts a King Cake into a bag with cake decorator Lien Ngo at the bakery in New Orleans East on Thursday, February 20, 2013. (Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, The Times-Picayune)

Garza's mother, Huong, is the master baker. She still oversees the baking, including the award-winning king cakes that are made in continuous 24-hour shifts during Carnival season. This year, they churned out approximately 100,000 of them, and they were shipped all over the country.

The bakery sees similar demand in the autumn for its mooncakes, which are traditional fare during the lunar festival celebrated by Vietnamese and other Asian communities.

The bakery's French loaves, called pistolettes, have become a favorite of area banh mi and po-boy sandwich makers.

Dong Phuong bakery wins James Beard's America's Classics award

Dong Phuong was named in 2018 as one of that year's James Beard America's Classics, which honors food outlets that have displayed a "timeless appeal and are cherished for quality food that reflects the character of their community."

Garza's attorney, Amanda Butler Schley, said Gemini's claims to have created the brand are ridiculous. She argued that Dong Phuong's history and reputation for great baked goods are the foundation of the brand.

"I think you could ask any of the publications that have ranked Dong Phuong's king cake as the best in the city, year after year, whether it was their new logo and website that caused them to suddenly recognize Dong Phuong's king cake greatness," she said. 

"I would argue it's Linh's direction and her mother's talent which has taken the company to where it is today, not its logo," Schley said. "That's the real brand here."

Whatever the outcome, all the parties involved agree that the breakdown in the relationship has been costly and caused heartache.

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Dong Phuong Bakery Manager Kelly Blanche stands in a doorway at the Chef Menteur Highway bakery in New Orleans East on Friday, June 18, 2021. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

Kelly Blanche, the bakery's manager, wistfully displayed an array of the colorful boxes that they will no longer be using to pack king cakes.

She said she'd taken a selfie in front of the beautiful Gemini-designed mural that adorned the streetside wall of the bakeshop before it had to be sand-blasted away.

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Dong Phuong Bakery manager Kelly Blanche shows a picture of herself with the mural that used on the side of the bakery's wall, which can now be seen blank in the background, in New Orleans East Friday, June 18, 2021. The mural has been sand blasted off due to a legal dispute with a designer. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

Garza said the bakery is working with a different marketing firm to develop an updated branding plan.

"Even though it was a difficult decision, since we have invested so much already, we decided not to license any of the work and start all over with a new firm," said Garza. "It was a tough and expensive lesson to learn, but this time we made sure we retained ownership."

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