BURLINGAME, Calif. -- A legal battle is heating up on the Peninsula over a giant Pez dispenser.

The couple who built it said their creation stand as a favorite attraction for the thousands of people who come to their Pez museum every year.

But the company that makes Pez says it should be destroyed.

The giant Pez is located at the Museum of Pez Memorabilia in Burlingame. Originally it was called the Pez Museum, but the name was changed early on because the candy company objected.

And now the home of the biggest collection of Pez dispensers in the world is being sued for trademark infringement.

"This is the very first one right here, this is what a Pez dispenser looked like when it came out in 1950," said Gary Doss as he showed off an item from his and wife Nancy's personal collection of 800 original Pez dispensers.

The first characters the company came out with were Caspar the Friendly Ghost and Mickey Mouse.

Two years ago, the museum got into the Guiness Book of World Records by building the world's largest Pez dispenser, an almost eight-foot high replica with a snowman's head.

"When I tilt the head back, what it actually dispenses is a Pez dispenser," said Doss as he demonstrated how the giant Pez works.

But Pez Candy Inc. says the snowman was not authorized by the company and demands it be destroyed.

Gary Doss said he's puzzled.

"I don't know if you need to be authorized to make a work of art and that's what this is. It's one piece. It's not for sale; I'm not selling it to anybody," he said. "We're not making thousands more."

But Pez says the museum was selling dispensers altered to bear the slogans "Obama '08 for Pezident" and "McCain for Pezident". The lawsuit says Pez never makes products "bearing political messages of any kind."

Doss countered, "We're not in the back here making Pez dispensers. We're taking the existing Pez dispensers and putting stickers on them." He went on to argue, "I think once you own a product, it's yours to do with what you want."

Doss says 10,000 people a year visit his Burlingame store front.

"I think it's kind of an honor to Pez. So I think it's kind of ridiculous to sue them because you come here to just see all the Pez things and buy Pez," said Elliott Glass, a visitor from Erie, Pennsylvania.

And a next door business owner doesn't understand it either. "They're not hurting anybody," said Margarita Heriz of Heriz Music & Art. "They're not trying to steal business from nobody."

Still, there is a 16-page complaint against the museum and it's a federal case that has already been filed in court in San Jose.

The Palo Alto lawyer representing Pez who KTVU was able to reach by phone refused to comment.

"There's a large corporation based in Switzerland fighting a store that's been here for 15 years selling their product that's run by me and my mother," said Doss. "We're the two people that work here, so it's a little overwhelming."

Just as the Pez dispenses candy, the museum hopes a judge will dispense justice and view this as a frivolous lawsuit.