What's in a name? Just ask Toucans Steel Drum Band

There's the Scopes Monkey Trial. There's "A Civil Action." And somewhat further down the list of legal David-vs.-Goliath fights, there's The Toucans.

Or, to be legally, unmistakably precise: the Toucans Steel Drum Band. The Seattle calypso group - which hatched at Evergreen College in 1988 and played this year's Folklife festival - has settled on that longish moniker after about five years of legal wrangling with the leviathan Kellogg's Company, home of Froot Loops cereal and its mascot, Toucan Sam.

Follow your nose to this: Worried that consumers might wrongly associate the band with the cereal, Kellogg's went so far as to assert that Toucan Sam is a recording artist, to keep the Toucans from playing under that name.

Bandmates reportedly endured depositions - in which drummer Pete Remine claims Kellogg's lawyers asked them if they had ever played their music near eggs - and amassed thousands in legal fees that they're still paying.

The band registered its full name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 22, and several days later issued a hyperbolic statement: "Kellogg's, apparently (withdrew) from their vigorous opposition due to public pressure. . ."

However, a spokeswoman at the Kellogg's Battle Creek, Mich., headquarters wasn't immediately aware of who the Toucans were, and said, "This is really a non-issue for us."

The band had originally tried to trademark "The Toucans" under the sound recordings classification. The cereal manufacturer opposed the move, claiming a similarity to the animated Toucan Sam character they had introduced in 1963 - and which originally spoke to kids in "Toucanese," which was essentially Pig Latin ("Oot-fray Oops-lay!"). Kellogg's specifically sought to block the Toucans in the sound recording category for a reason that made the four band members' synapses snap, crackle and pop: In 1980, boxes of Froot Loops contained a free record called "Toucan Sam's Safari Adventure."

Eriously-say: Although apparently on musical hiatus for two decades, and with no plans to make another album, Toucan Sam was considered a recording artist.

"We have used music with him in terms of commercials, and we have used calypso music, so there could be some inference (on the part of consumers)," said Kellogg's spokewoman Chris Ervin. "It was close enough that it made us uncomfortable."

Toucans member Pete Remine insists nobody in the group had the Froot Loops bird in mind when they picked the name at Evergreen College in 1988. And he found it hard to swallow that consumers would associate a steel drum band with a breakfast cereal. (Nonetheless, the company tends to pursue with Grrrreat! vigor anyone who even appears to encroach on its well-known characters. Ervin said Kellogg's - also the home of Tony the Tiger - has received the go-ahead from a federal appeals court for legal action against Exxon for its "Tiger Mart" convenience stores.)

The band took one of Kellogg's suggestions, and went with the longer and much more specific name, "Toucans Steel Drum Band," as well as registering under a different class (the more ambiguous "entertainment services").

"This is definitely a legal victory because Kellogg's didn't oppose it," said Toucans attorney Neil Sussman.

Remine is aware that more people may know of his band through the name dispute than the music. "That was a realization that hit us after the first media push back in 1995, and that's not anything we set out to do."

But the band apparently doesn't mind milking the issue. A cartoon on the Toucans Web site (www.tou cans.net/) depicts a box of "Loop Holes" cereal crushing a bird.