This is one pillow fight: Small Michigan company takes on giant MyPillow, CEO Mike Lindell

A small Michigan pillow company is in a back-and-forth court battle – call it a nasty pillow fight – with industry giant MyPillow, made famous by its colorful CEO's TV infomercials, recovery from crack addiction and exuberance for President Donald Trump.

Minnesota-based MyPillow, which says it has 1,600 employees and 44 million customers, last year sued for trademark infringement Wixom, Michigan-based LMP Worldwide, which sells pillows under the name "I Love My Pillow" and has nine employees.

Last week, I Love My Pillow denied all the allegations and countersued.

From Subarus to Chevys to Lexus:These car models are so hot they're flying off car dealers' lots

Tesla to reveal Model Y:Elon Musk bets big on new electric SUV

MyPillow was started in 2004 and is about three years older than I Love My Pillow. I Love My Pillow's founder, Mark Arthurs, came up with his company's name after his daughter tried his homemade prototype and exclaimed, "Daddy, 'I love my pillow!' "

MyPillow founder Mike Lindell is his company's upbeat marketing pitchman,  personally guaranteeing that MyPillow "is going to be the most comfortable pillow you'll ever own."

Lindell is open about his past struggles with crack cocaine, which cost him a marriage, his house and nearly his company before he sobered up in 2009.

More recently, Lindell has generated headlines for his effusive praise of Trump, including at last month's Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland when he described him as "chosen by God." 

Advertisers exit: Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro shows on Fox News amid controversies

Complaint filed:Spotify claims 'Apple tax' harms consumers, stifles rivals

MyPillow and I Love My Pillow make competing styles of memory foam-like pillows. Following previous litigation, they signed a co-existence deal in 2013.

But MyPillow accuses I Love My Pillow of breaking the terms of that deal by purchasing the words "my" and "pillow" in Google search ads. Additionally, an I Love My Pillow employee emailed a wholesale customer that “(w)e’re confident going head to head with other pillows, especially My Pillow (sic).”

MyPillow has asked the U.S. District Court in Minnesota to force I Love My Pillow to surrender its website ILoveMyPillow.com, stop using the phrase and design "I (heart) my pillow," and recall and destroy all of its pillows that carry the "I (heart) my pillow" tag.

"They are another company that is trying to piggyback and copy someone else like it’s their own idea," Lindell said in a phone interview Tuesday. "What a shame."

I Love My Pillow denies doing anything that violated the deal.

The company does admit to purchasing "my" and "pillow" ad words in late 2016, but insists that it immediately corrected that error within the time period allowed under the deal.

Counterclaim

Last week, I Love My Pillow filed a fiery counterclaim against MyPillow, accusing the Minnesota company of false advertising and unfair competition, demanding that MyPillow share with I Love My Pillow its ill-gotten profits, among other remedies. 

"What my client wants is to be able to compete in a market that is fair, where consumers make purchasing decisions based on the quality of the products," said attorney A. Michael Palizzi of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, who is representing I Love My Pillow.

MyPillow has come under scrutiny before for its marketing practices, including ads that referred to Lindell as a "sleep expert." The company settled various class-action lawsuits and paid a $1 million-plus California judgement in 2016. 

In 2017, the Better Business Bureau dropped MyPillow's grade from an A+ to an F for running a long-standing "buy one, get one free" offer. According to the BBB, "buy one, get one" offers should be offered for 30 or fewer days, or the price becomes continuous and not a sale price, the StarTribune reported at the time.

It's personal

On Tuesday, Lindell called that "buy one, get one" flap a false controversy that was manufactured by critics of his political views.

“That was an attack because I backed the greatest president that ever, ever ran the United States of America," he said. "That’s where that comes from, and you can print that.”

I Love My Pillow's countersuit focuses on a "sleep study" that MyPillow recently touted on its website and in ads as proof that MyPillow is the best pillow.

According to I Love My Pillow, the sleep study was unscientific, flawed and misleading to consumers.

The MyPillow website initially announced this: “NEW SLEEP STUDY PROVED! 100 percent of sleep study participants INCREASED their amount of DEEP SLEEP with MyPillow!”

The website also described the study as a “double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study comparing study participants’ sleep between their original pillow, MyPillow Classic pillow and goose-down pillows.”

But according to I Love My Pillow, the study could not have been "blind" because the participants would obviously have known whether or not they used their own pillows. What's more, the difference between a foam-stuffed MyPillow and a goose-down pillow would be immediately apparent, the countersuit says.

After learning that I Love My Pillow was filing its counterclaim, MyPillow in January altered the website's wording to remove the statements “double-blind,” “randomized” and “placebo-controlled,” the countersuit says.

Also:

• MyPillow went on to backpedal the reference to "100 percent" of study participants improving their deep sleep.
• MyPillow actually funded the sleep study, and the company that conducted it had never before done one.
• The study was to include 520 paid participants, but more than half of them didn't complete the study, usually because they dropped out.

According to I Love My Pillow, those false and misleading medical claims diverted potential business away from its own pillows.

A money grab?

Lindell insisted Tuesday that the sleep study was legitimate.

"Some of the people dropped out (of the study) because they didn’t want to go though the  horror of using another pillow once they used MyPillow," he said. “You couldn’t pay them enough to stay on these other pillows – that’s the truth."

For Lindell, the I Love My Pillow countersuit is simply "a money grab." 

"This whole system needs to be changed so all the lawyers go to jail for all their frivolous lawsuits," he said.

ContactJC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl.