When the players are slinging ketchup bottles inside the red zone, you just know it's going to get messy.

The H.J. Heinz Co. may not have meant to pick a food fight with the Indianapolis Colts and a small Indiana ketchup company, but now the Pittsburgh condiment maker finds itself liberally smeared with charges of trying to co-opt a historic football tradition.

About a year ago, Heinz sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Colts asking them to stop using the term "red zone" in association with Red Gold ketchup. The problem, according to Heinz, was that the Colts and their sponsor appear to be running a marketing offense similar to one the nation's dominant ketchup maker has used for several years.

In a program that Heinz operates with four National Football League teams, whenever the home team's offense moves the ball inside the 20-yard line, radio broadcasters announce that the team is now in the Heinz Red Zone and the company makes a donation to charity for scores made from that area.

Not long after starting the program, Heinz pitched the idea to several teams but ended up working mainly with four -- the Steelers, the Cleveland Browns, the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Red Gold, a 1,200-employee tomato products company in Elwood, Ind., has had a similar program with the Indianapolis Colts, also making donations to charities.

"It's a trademark issue," said Heinz spokesman Robin Teets "We felt their program was a little too close."

But the Pittsburgh company's letter to the Colts asked that they quit using the term "red zone," said Dan Emerson, general counsel for the team. And that phrase has been around a long time.

"We just thought it was a ridiculous idea," said Brian Reichart, chief executive officer of the family-owned Red Gold. When his company received word from the Colts recently that the matter had not yet been resolved, Red Gold put out a news release to call attention to what it sees as a big guy trying to roll over a little one.

"We didn't have the resources that Heinz has to slug it out," said Mr. Reichart, who seems to know a little something about low-budget marketing.

Heinz isn't the only company trying to protect a legal right to use the red zone term in some fashion or other. A quick check of U.S. trademark listings finds Procter & Gamble uses it for antiperspirant, a Canadian company has the right to put the phrase on grills and a Massachusetts company on board games.

Mr. Emerson, of the Super Bowl-bound Colts, said attempts to resolve the dispute with Heinz last year didn't get very far, but that recently he'd been more encouraged. "I'm certainly optimistic that we're going to be able to have a cessation of hostility."

Mr. Teets also seemed to think the end zone was in sight.

"We're working toward an amicable resolution with the Colts," he said.

Which might even last until they play the Steelers again. At Heinz Field.