‘Pizza Puff’ Is Fair Game, Little Caesars Tells Seventh Circuit

Judges and lawyers from some of Chicago’s major firms grappled at length Friday with a fast food quandary: Can Little Caesars’ Crazy Puffs, in fact, be accurately described as “puffy?”

An attorney for Illinois Tamale Company said the answer is no. Puffs are light and airy, and there’s “nothing about Little Caesars’ product that was puffy,” said Elizabeth Thompson of Saul Ewing.

“Other than the fact that they look like a muffin,” responded Judge Michael Scudder Jr. of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. “And it wouldn’t be crazy to call a muffin kind of puffy in appearance.”

At stake is fate of the phrase “pizza puff,” which is trademarked by Illinois Tamale Company. The company, which does business as Italco and has sold the snack for decades, believes Little Caesars shouldn’t be able to advertise its items as “hand-held pizza puffs.”

That phrase can’t fall under fair use because it’s not simply descriptive of the product, Thompson argued.

In fact, neither snack really fits the “light, round, hollow pastry” textbook definition of “puff,” she said. The Iltaco snack is a tortilla filled with pizza ingredients, while the Crazy Puffs are more like muffins with pizza toppings, Thompson said.

The term “pizza puff” should be considered fair game, Jeffery Handelman of Crowell & Moring argued on behalf of Little Caesars. He cited a survey showing that more than 83 percent of respondents thought of the phrase as a generic term.

‘Descriptive’

Little Caesars, on the cusp of introducing a new menu item, was granted a “Crazy Puffs” mark, according to court filings.

Iltaco sued, asking for an injunction on Little Caesars’ use of the terms “Crazy Puffs” and “Four Hand-Held Pizza Puffs” in its marketing.

Judge Jeremy Daniel of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois split the difference: Little Caesars couldn’t use the term “pizza puff,” he found, but it could use “Crazy Puffs.” Both sides appealed.

Friday’s panel seemed skeptical of some of Iltaco’s claims and the lower court ruling; Judges Candace Jackson-Akiwumi and Amy St. Eve said Daniel used the wrong legal test in reaching his decision.

Jackson-Akiwumi noted that a description doesn’t need to be accurate in order to qualify as “descriptive” for purposes of the law.

Maybe the Crazy Puffs are “more like a cupcake or muffin,” she said, “but that goes to the accuracy, not the manner in which the company is describing or using the words.”

The case is Ill. Tamale Co., Inc. v. LC Trademarks, Inc., 7th Cir., Nos. 24-3317, 25-1072, 25-1076, 25-1112 (cons.), oral arguments 11/14/25.