Pillsbury Doughboy takes off the oven mitts

Pillsbury's Facebook page is usually a place where people comment on recipes and their favorite foods. But lately it's been buzzing with angst, amid claims flying that the Doughboy did a smack-down of the Dough Girl.

The Doughboy, aka Poppin' Fresh, is Pillsbury's puffy little advertising icon. My Dough Girl is a bakery in Salt Lake City that specializes in frozen cookie dough.

In May, Golden Valley-based General Mills, owner of the Pillsbury brand, asked the bakery's owner, Tami Cromar, to stop using the My Dough Girl name or risk getting sued.

Cromar said General Mills told her that My Dough Girl is too similar to Doughboy, and therefore is a trademark infringement. My Dough Girl "dilutes and tarnishes" Doughboy, Cromar said she was told by General Mills.

General Mills asked Cromar to nix the name after she sought to trademark "My Dough Girl" with the federal government. "It was necessary, but unfortunate, because the business involved -- My Dough Girl -- and the infringement both seemed small," General Mills said in a statement.

"But the application was specifically for categories in which we operate, including cookies and refrigerated dough products nationally. We needed to protect our trademarks -- and we did. We are working with the business owner to resolve the issue and help mitigate the impact."

Cromar hasn't yet changed her bakery's name, but she's decided to comply with the packaged foods giant's wishes rather than fight. Her 18-month-old business, which has five part-time employees, doesn't have the resources to do much else.

"My goal is to remember life isn't fair, so you figure out a solution and move on," she said. "You stay positive."

However, My Dough Girl's fans have, as Cromar put it, "taken it to the street because they're ticked."

Not long after Cromar was told to stop using the name, a Salt Lake food writer named Joshua Shimizu created a "My Dough Girl vs. Pillsbury Corporation" website on Facebook.

Over the past week, Salt Lake city's two main daily newspapers ran stories on Cromar's plight, and suddenly Pillsbury's own Facebook page was lit up with complaints. One from Kjirstin Youngberg pretty much summed up their position: "Drop your lawsuit against My Dough Girl, you big, fat bullies!"

Cases like the one against My Dough Girl are common, "especially for a company [like General Mills] with a large portfolio of trademarks," said Bill McGeveran, a trademark expert at the University of Minnesota's School of Law. Such firms "will have a whole operation of people policing their trademarks."

Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003