Trademark Infringement Headlines Offer Franchisors Important Lessons
This past week has seen several headlines about significant trademark infringement lawsuits. Many franchisors live and die by their trademarks, and their executives need to understand the value of strategic trademark protection and the importance of swift trademark enforcement.
This article takes a look at what franchisors need to be taking away from two recent (mostly) successful trademark infringement lawsuits.
"Griller" Fast Food Chain Defeats "The Original Griller," But Loses to Others
The owner of the Griller fast food franchise chain sued three different restaurant operators operating under the trademarks The Original Griller, Griller King and The Griller Hut, respectively. The Griller franchise owned two registered trademarks covering, among other things, food and restaurant services.
The Griller franchise prevailed in its trademark infringement suit against The Original Griller. This was due, in part, to the fact that The Original Griller’s logo featured the word “Griller” more prominently than the other included words.
However, Griller lost on its trademark infringement claims against the other operators. This was due to the fact that the court considered “Griller” to be largely “descriptive” of the service and products that Griller restaurants sell—preparing and selling grilled chicken.
The Lesson: Context is important when choosing a trademark. First, the strength of a trademark must be determined in the context of the products and services for which it is used. Descriptive trademarks (even registered ones) are generally going to have a much narrower scope of protection, whereas suggestive, arbitrary and creative (fanciful) trademarks are going to have wider enforceability. Second, the overall makeup of a trademark can determine whether the trademark is infringing. The ‘The Original Griller’ trademark was found to be infringing because the owner emphasized the ‘Griller’ term (and this trademark also seems much more descriptive as a whole), whereas ‘Griller King’ and ‘The Griller Hut’ incorporate a descriptive term into a trademark that creates a more unique and distinctive commercial impression.
$6.1 Million Verdict Upheld in Trademark Lawsuit Between Skydiving Service Competitors
In another case, Skydive Arizona, one of the nation’s largest skydiving centers, won a $6.1M trademark infringement verdict against Skyride, a service that connects skydivers to skydiving centers around the country. Skyride’s marketing strategy apparently included hosting several Arizona skydiving- related websites, including one located at the domain name, skydivearizona.net.
Skydive Arizona actually won its lawsuit on a number of bases, including false advertising, unfair competition, cybersquatting, and of course trademark infringement. The company’s success was based, in part, on the fact that some consumers had purchased certificates from Skyride thinking that they could redeem them with Skydive Arizona—which wasn’t the case.
On appeal, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the $6.1M award.
The Lesson: Trademarks are big business, and misleading consumers and causing confusion can give rise to substantial liability. Intentionally misleading consumers and trying to benefit from someone else’s goodwill will only make matters worse. Here, too, the plaintiff’s trademark (Skydive Arizona) seems fairly descriptive, but the company was nonetheless able to obtain a substantial verdict due to the defendant’s apparent willful conduct.
Jeff Fabian assists business owners in protecting their brands so that they can stay focused on running their businesses. Follow Jeff on Twitter @FabianOnIP.
This article is provided for informational purposes only, and does not constitute legal advice.
Why I Have an Issue with the Forbes Franchise Rankings
The 5-Year Growth Rate and 5-Year Franchise Continuity are both great independent metrics of how a franchise is doing on average. As a potential franchisee both of these statistics are vital for selecting a franchise - you want to select a franchise that will provide you with a high return on investment and which will survive in the long run. I think these are, as FRANdata and Forbes suggested, two of the biggest (if not the two biggest) and most obvious metrics for whether or not a franchise is a “good” opportunity for a franchisee. But how do you use these to determine which franchise is BEST? This is the fundamental difficulty in coming up with a ranking system - it isn’t the difficulty in separating the good from the meh from the bad - it’s separating the great from the good and the best from the great. In the case of these rankings I found it to be pretty difficult to comprehend how they differentiated between the top ranked franchises. For instance, if you look at the difference between Discover Map (Forbes #4), Just Between Friends (Forbes #5), & Seniors Helping Seniors (Forbes #6) they all have extremely close continuity ratings and substantially different growth rates. In fact, in the case of these three, the overall rankings are opposite the growth rate rankings. Seniors Helping Seniors is ranked at the bottom of these three franchises despite having a growth rate that is 31 percentage points higher than Discovery Map and a continuity that is only 2 percentage points lower. This suggested to me that continuity was viewed as the dominant factor. But that logic didn’t hold for the rest on the “Economy Class” Top 10, as BrightStar Care (Forbes #7) had the same growth rate as Pop-a-Lock (Forbes #8) but a continuity rate that was 12 percentage points lower. These comparisons show that these were not the only two factors that went into the rankings, which is understandable, but no other factors that are explicitly listed in their results seem to be major factors.
FranchiseHope: How FRANdata’s Unique Research & Insights Help Brands Grow During Turbulent Times
There are so many worthy mentions within our space of colleagues and friendly competitors, we wanted to help shed light on the folks driving business intelligence of the industry.
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