Regular readers may remember that Walgreens filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Wegmans last fall over the fact that the two companies’ “W”s could maybe, possibly, if you squint, look similar. Well, Wegmans has decided it’s cheaper to change some logos than fight a lawsuit, because it has agreed to change the offending W on its store-brand products.

The Wegmans logo, which had been around for two years when the suit was filed, was actually designed to look like one of the store’s former logos from the 1930s and ’40s. As part of the settlement, the grocery store chain will still be allowed to use the full Wegmans name in that font, but it has agreed to discontinue using the “circle W” symbol on its store-brand product packaging by June 30, 2012.

“The cost of making relatively minor changes to a limited number of products was much less than the cost of litigating this case to the end,” said Wegmans’ director of media relations to DemocratAndChronicle.com. “We wanted to return to a logo we had used many decades ago. There was never any intent on our part to make our products or logos resemble those of Walgreens.”

Wegmans, Walgreens settle their legal dispute over logos [DemocratAndChronicle.com]

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