The origins and true meaning of the “6 7” meme remain murky to most people over the age of 18, but the two digits are now at the center of a very adult court battle over which chicken nugget maker gets to cash in on the trend.
The meat and poultry giant Perdue Foods is suing Soules Foods in federal court in Virginia, claiming that Soules copied the visual concept of its “6 7 Chicken Nuggets” this year.
Perdue’s frozen, breaded nuggets, shaped like the numerals 6 and 7, debuted in April and were sold nationwide in Walmart stores by May. The colorful packaging shows the nuggets with a pair of cupped hands beneath them, against a playful, doodle-filled background and, for good measure, a smiley face.
For the uninitiated, the design is based on the “6 7” meme that consists of little more than repeating the two numbers, often while making a juggling motion with one’s hands. The meme, often traced back to the song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by the rapper Skrilla, has reached even Kier Starmer, the prime minister of Britain, and Pope Leo XIV.
Perdue found competition in Soules Foods, which announced on June 7 (yes, 6/7) that it would also sell breaded chicken nuggets in the shapes of 6 and 7, in packaging that shows the nuggets held up by cartoon hands against a playful, doodle-filled background as well as a variety of smiley face emojis of its own.
In a lawsuit filed last week, Perdue asserted that Soules’ use of those core elements — the “6 7” product designation, breaded nugget numerals, cartoon hands under the numbers, doodle-style stars and smiley faces — were intentionally copied.
A spokesman for Soules said this week that the company disagreed with Perdue’s claims. Soules has hired a lawyer and said that its nuggets will be available at Kroger and Aldi stores nationwide in July.
Perdue’s applications for trademarks of “6 7” and hands positioned below breaded 6 and 7 shapes are pending with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The company’s lawsuit seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction to stop Soules from manufacturing, marketing or selling chicken nuggets using the “6 7” name, or the breaded-numeral/cartoon-hand artwork. It also wants to force Soules to recall and destroy all that packaging and advertising material.
But claiming trademark rights for nuggets in the shape of numbers is not an easy case to make, one expert said.
“You can’t be the only producer of nuggets in the shape of ‘6 7,’ just like you can’t be the only producers of chicken dinos, or unicorn mac and cheese, or fish sticks in the shapes of fish,” said Prof. Alexandra Roberts, the faculty director of the Center for Law, Information & Creativity at Northeastern University Law School.
The trademark applications of the packaging designs including a pair of hands have a “good chance of succeeding,” but the “6 7” does not, Professor Roberts said. Soules also announced a partnership with Maverick Trevillian, a teenager commonly credited with popularizing “6 7” last year.
“So that might help distinguish them,” Professor Roberts said of the partnership. “There’s an argument to be made that when consumers see the Soules brand products, they’re going to say: ‘Oh, yeah, that’s this guy. So that’s the brand I’m looking for,’ or something like that.”
But Perdue says Soules’ product has already caused consumer confusion. The lawsuit cites one example, pointing to an Instagram post about Soules’ release of its “6 7” Chicken Nuggets in which another user commented: “I saw 67 nuggets at walmart 3 weeks ago.”
Professor Roberts said that she did not find the example persuasive. The similar design of the hands might be the strongest argument for an injunction, she said, but even so, the hands are part of the meme, and Soules could argue that those also should not be protectable.
“If a court were to find the likelihood of confusion and grant an injunction here, I would think the injunction would just be: Redesign the packaging without the hands or make the hands look really different,” Professor Roberts said.
While no one can outright own a meme, she said, many are based on work that has been copyrighted and have some protections. The “6 7” meme is not one of them.
When a meme is closely associated with one person, Professor Roberts said, it can give them a greater ability to assert exclusive rights. But the “6 7” meme predated the boy Soules partnered with, and is not solely associated with him.
Overall, Professor Roberts was skeptical of Perdue’s chances of winning in court.
“That would be a major kind of monopoly on this whole product category,” she said. “Intellectual property law does give monopolies, but that’s with patents. It’s not what trademarks are for.”
Seamus Hughes contributed research.
