Trademark bullying: Shut your kale-hole CHICK-FIL-A sells an average of nine sandwiches per second at its roughly 1,600 restaurants. Bo Muller-Moore paints T-shirts in the garage next to his house in Montpelier, Vermont. In 2011 Chick-fil-A's sales were more than $4 billion; Mr Muller-Moore (pictured) estimates that his were $40,000. Nonetheless, the slogan screened on his shirts - "Eat More Kale," initially made in 2001 as a favour for a local farmer, whose kale crop had a bumper year - caught the humourless eyes of Chick-fil-A's lawyers. They had sent him a cease-and-desist letter in 2006, claiming his slogan was too close to their client's "Eat Mor Chikin." Then they let the matter drop. But when Mr Muller-Moore tried to copyright his slogan last summer, Chick-fil-A's lawyers moved to block it. They warned Mr Muller-Moore that they had successfully pressured other miscreants into dropping some 30 slogans, from "Eat More Dog" to "Eat More Music." Their letter also alleged that Mr Muller-Moore's "misappropriation of Chick-fil-A's EAT MOR CHIKIN intellectual property...is likely to cause confusion." Really? The letter does not cite a single person whom the slogan has confused. Besides, one entity sells food, the other clothing; only the profoundly stoned or deranged would try to eat a T-shirt or wear a chicken sandwich. But Mr Muller-Moore is not the only small entrepreneur to have caught the attention of a big firm's trademark hawks. In 2009 the company that makes Monster energy drinks demanded that Vermont's Rock Art Brewery stop calling its barley wine "Vermonster." Last year Tootsie Roll Industries, which makes chewy sweets, filed suit against the maker of a roll-up shoe called Footzyrolls. And in 2009 The North Face, an outdoor-clothing company, sued a much smaller clothing company that had decided to call itself The South Butt. Chick-fil-A insists it has to protect its trademark. But its idea of self-defence looks to others like bullying. The firm is protecting its trademark not from a crafty restaurateur hoping to piggyback on its fame, but from a kale farmer and a "Neolithic stencil-artist" in Vermont. Also, Chick-fil-A seems to be claiming ownership of the phrase "eat more," which is a bit greedy. Mr Muller-Moore is fighting back. He has taken his campaign to Facebook and Kickstarter, where he and a co-producer are trying to raise funds for a documentary called "A Defiant Dude." Rock Art Brewery similarly defended itself, not in a court of law, where deep-pocketed corporations enjoy an enormous advantage, but in the court of public opinion. It worked. After boycotts and negative publicity, Monster's makers agreed to drop the matter provided that Rock Art did not start making energy drinks. Mr Muller-Moore claims to have received thousands of supportive letters. Hundreds of people have pledged to fund his film. Chick-fil-A may end up eating more crow.