Legal Question in Product Liability in North Carolina

Re: Use of Trademarked Product in Humor Article

You may want to consult a lawyer that specializes in copyright, trademark, and intellectual property generally. If you have a publisher, then it may be able to provide you with some guidance on this. Based on my understanding of this area of law, there is no reason you could not refer to the product. It does not appear that you are making a false (and defamatory) statement about the product; hence there should be no claim for libel. Even the grape comment does not seem defamatory. It seems that in literature there is often reference to specific brands of products. There are, for example, songs about Cadillacs and Mercedez Benzes; I doubt those artists needed their permission to use those names. And it seems that you are not trying to capitalize on the product name (e.g. purporting to have an affiliation with the product). This sounds much more like hot air than a valid threat. You may also want to write to the company and ask it for a specific statutory provision which prohibits your use of its product's name, or the general area of law applicable. This puts the ball in their court. If you wanted to be hyper-cautious, you could consider including some disclaimer in your story, perhaps in a footnote, or at the end; disclaiming any affiliation with the product, and denying any defamatory intent.