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"Why not"?! There is couple of fundamental difference to Unilever example: 1. Similar sounding names to existing brand is trademark infringement. Here this pa

by achow 4y ago

"Why not"?! There is couple of fundamental difference to Unilever example: 1. Similar sounding names to existing brand is trademark infringement. Here this particular entity is deliberately copying the restaurant names to mislead people into selecting them (when original restaurants are closed). 2. Assumption is Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards, and it stands behind them (packages will follow federal labeling guidelines). It is for A/B testing of brand collaterals (name, packaging graphics, colors, copy etc.). Here obviously that is not the case. It is very obvious that deception is the end goal, so really don't understand "why not" remark.

lovich 4y ago
>1. Similar sounding names to existing brand is trademark infringement. Here this particular entity is deliberately copying the restaurant names to mislead people into selecting them (when original restaurants are closed). Can you define that difference? Wingstop and Thighstop for instance are incredibly close and not enough to trigger regulatory enforcement. There is the side note that they are owned by the same entity, but do regulators know that for a fact before they decide no to enforce penalties for what you are claiming is trademark infringement? >2. Assumption is Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards, and it stands behind them (packages will follow federal labeling guidelines). It is for A/B testing of brand collaterals (name, packaging graphics, colors, copy etc.). Here obviously that is not the case. > Assumption is Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards... Where did this assumption come from? That's a claim without any backing as far as I am aware. Do you honestly believe they only make different brands because they are testing how the sound of the brands name affects sales? Nothing around compartmentalizing the risk of them causing some backlash by cutting corners or getting people ill, and the ability to just cut off that one brand rather than their entire product line? >It is very obvious that deception is the end goal, so really don't understand "why not" remark. It is literally the opposite to me. It feels like deception is the main goal unless they make the "Product of X Conglomerate" a larger part of the packaging than the brands label, and not the minimum size required by law, or if its legally allowed, omitted entirely from the label
- achow 4y ago
  Too argumentative.. but would try to answer some. > Can you define that difference? Wingstop and Thighstop for instance are incredibly close.. The author of the blog clearly identified the modus operandi. He makes a very compelling case (he obviously understand the local context, can intuit things based upon the fuzzy dataset which is result of his experiencing the system over time.. etc.). > Where did this assumption come from? (Unilever has exacting manufacturing standards) That's a claim without any backing as far as I am aware.. The knowledge of how world works and is typically built if one is curious enough. https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2022/shining-a-light-on-our-first-lighthouse-factory-in-india/ https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2022/shining-a-lig...
- TheDong 4y ago
  > Can you define that difference? Wingstop and Thighstop for instance are incredibly close and not enough to trigger regulatory enforcement I can define the difference clearly: "whatever a court decides" The law is intentionally fuzzy, and in the case of trademark, it's whether the names are "likely to cause consumer confusion", which is an obviously fuzzy thing that cannot be encoded in a computer or with a set of string matching rules. Which is fine, our legal system has humans in it. If the companies are doing so with the specific intent of causing consumer confusion, then it seems like the court would have a relatively easy time at showing that such an occurrence was likely.
  - lovich 4y ago
    What the court decides is different than “similar sounding names”. My point was that similar sounding names are not automatically infringement because they need a court to decide that the similarity doesn’t matter. I explicitly pointed out two similar sounding restaurant names owned by the same entity because either they were assumed to be IP infringement until a court decided they were not, or courts didn’t get involved by default for similar sounding names. The whole point was to make a reductio ab absurdum argument that similarity of names did not matter in terms of IP until courts were involved, so bringing it up as a reason that ghost kitchens couldn’t make similar names a silly argument to make sans lawsuits
  - 4y ago
psyc 4y ago
You can find thousands of comments of the form “This is no different from…” which exhibit temporary amnesia about the devil in the details. It’s hard to know if something is a harmless analogue of something else. And too often the precedent isn’t even a good precedent.
jiggywiggy 4y ago
At the core is a more fundamental principle at play: reputation. The law just tries to honor this one way or another. Reputation is a core concept in building trust in human relations, that we have subconsciously transferred to brands. Since the dawn of time, both humans and brands are trying to fake their reputation. For instance in the old days, when communication wasn't as fast, con artists used to travel a lot, allowing them to start over after ruining their reputation. I think for many of us it gives an innate sense of disgust because it goes agains the core of human relationships.
- jhugo 4y ago
  Exactly this. This is the same as the reason to be concerned about counterfeit products — the seller has nothing to lose if the product is dangerous or substandard, since the reputation damage happens to someone else.
  - hammock 4y ago
    Brands used to put “Established 1850” or whatever on their packaging. Now old brands aren’t respected by most consumers who are looking for that new thing they saw on an Instagram ad or learned from a YouTuber
    - lostdog 4y ago
      Most brands trashed their own reputations on purpose. For any given brand, I don't know whether I'm getting their solid 2000s quality products, or their now shitty 2020s quality products.
      - galangalalgol 4y ago
        That has happened a lot, but the gp is also correct, there are quality products that are inexpensive simply because they have been around forever, so people think they are boring or outdated. There are some really good deals on spirits for instance, that simply aren't popular, but have always been high quality. Eventually someone writes an article about it and they either raise the price, or it is unobtainable.
dalbasal 4y ago
Perhaps legally, these nitpicks are valid. Lawyers are nitpicky types. "Deception" defined in a legally functional way, tends to see things differently to average people using common sense. I agree with the parent, there is a lot of similarity here. You may be right that cloud kitchens are more haphazard and veer into challengeable trademark infringement. Old giants like Unilever tend to be better at legal precision. Besides that, they're both doing the same thing. They're using brands to obfuscate, artificially manage reputation, or achieve basic marketing goals... not tell consumers who they are buying from. It's all deceptive. Fake choice, fake competition, fake diversity. It's all abusive of trademarks. Trademarks are intended to help consumers know what they're buying, create some reputational accountability. Typical FMCG strategies, like unilever and these cloud kitchens, are all about neutralising this... allow them to enjoy positive reputation while neutralising the negative reputation. All of this is standard strategy, used often. For example. You are going for a "normal" supermarket experience: Many options for cereal, cheese, detergent, etc. Choice. But, you still want 70% cereal market share to go to vendor A. Maybe it's an internal vendor. So, fake branding. Fake diversity. Create the experience without creating the experience. As Cloud restaurants become a mature, they'll probably learn to avoid legal trouble. But, the game will still be the game. It's not cheating if you're drunk. The post, for example, wants to know which brands represent which kitchens. He doesn't want food from the bad kitchens. Tightening up trademark infringement will not help him.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Exactly! Some companies use their brand to differentiate their good qualities from their competition, but other companies use thousands of brands to hide themselves, obfuscate, and confuse customers. If someone publicized that they found rat poison in one of Nestle's products, Nestle would rather people just stop buying that brand and not boycott its entire portfolio of brands. That's obfuscation and deception.
scotty79 4y ago
Results are the same. Spamming mental space of a consumer so that no matter what he buys he buys from them, but has illusion of choice.
trasz 4y ago
>Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards They absolutely don’t. Given brand of laundry detergents can be quite different between neighboring Poland and Germany, with the only visible difference being the set of languages on the label.
clairity 4y ago
what unilever is doing is segmenting the market, and filling each segment with a product offering. cloud kitchens are trying to do the same, but the issue is they're not segmenting on quality at all because they're fundamentally pursuing a (lower) cost strategy. you can't differentiate on quality if you have thin margins, as implied by the cost strategy. they're primarily segmenting on (a select subset) of cuisines, which doesn't get you as far as you might think in such a competitive market as prepared food delivery.

by achow 4y ago

lovich 4y ago

>1. Similar sounding names to existing brand is trademark infringement. Here this particular entity is deliberately copying the restaurant names to mislead people into selecting them (when original restaurants are closed). Can you define that difference? Wingstop and Thighstop for instance are incredibly close and not enough to trigger regulatory enforcement. There is the side note that they are owned by the same entity, but do regulators know that for a fact before they decide no to enforce penalties for what you are claiming is trademark infringement? >2. Assumption is Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards, and it stands behind them (packages will follow federal labeling guidelines). It is for A/B testing of brand collaterals (name, packaging graphics, colors, copy etc.). Here obviously that is not the case. > Assumption is Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards... Where did this assumption come from? That's a claim without any backing as far as I am aware. Do you honestly believe they only make different brands because they are testing how the sound of the brands name affects sales? Nothing around compartmentalizing the risk of them causing some backlash by cutting corners or getting people ill, and the ability to just cut off that one brand rather than their entire product line? >It is very obvious that deception is the end goal, so really don't understand "why not" remark. It is literally the opposite to me. It feels like deception is the main goal unless they make the "Product of X Conglomerate" a larger part of the packaging than the brands label, and not the minimum size required by law, or if its legally allowed, omitted entirely from the label

achow 4y ago
Too argumentative.. but would try to answer some. > Can you define that difference? Wingstop and Thighstop for instance are incredibly close.. The author of the blog clearly identified the modus operandi. He makes a very compelling case (he obviously understand the local context, can intuit things based upon the fuzzy dataset which is result of his experiencing the system over time.. etc.). > Where did this assumption come from? (Unilever has exacting manufacturing standards) That's a claim without any backing as far as I am aware.. The knowledge of how world works and is typically built if one is curious enough. https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2022/shining-a-light-on-our-first-lighthouse-factory-in-india/ https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2022/shining-a-lig...
TheDong 4y ago
> Can you define that difference? Wingstop and Thighstop for instance are incredibly close and not enough to trigger regulatory enforcement I can define the difference clearly: "whatever a court decides" The law is intentionally fuzzy, and in the case of trademark, it's whether the names are "likely to cause consumer confusion", which is an obviously fuzzy thing that cannot be encoded in a computer or with a set of string matching rules. Which is fine, our legal system has humans in it. If the companies are doing so with the specific intent of causing consumer confusion, then it seems like the court would have a relatively easy time at showing that such an occurrence was likely.
- lovich 4y ago
  What the court decides is different than “similar sounding names”. My point was that similar sounding names are not automatically infringement because they need a court to decide that the similarity doesn’t matter. I explicitly pointed out two similar sounding restaurant names owned by the same entity because either they were assumed to be IP infringement until a court decided they were not, or courts didn’t get involved by default for similar sounding names. The whole point was to make a reductio ab absurdum argument that similarity of names did not matter in terms of IP until courts were involved, so bringing it up as a reason that ghost kitchens couldn’t make similar names a silly argument to make sans lawsuits
- 4y ago

psyc 4y ago

You can find thousands of comments of the form “This is no different from…” which exhibit temporary amnesia about the devil in the details. It’s hard to know if something is a harmless analogue of something else. And too often the precedent isn’t even a good precedent.

jiggywiggy 4y ago

At the core is a more fundamental principle at play: reputation. The law just tries to honor this one way or another. Reputation is a core concept in building trust in human relations, that we have subconsciously transferred to brands. Since the dawn of time, both humans and brands are trying to fake their reputation. For instance in the old days, when communication wasn't as fast, con artists used to travel a lot, allowing them to start over after ruining their reputation. I think for many of us it gives an innate sense of disgust because it goes agains the core of human relationships.

jhugo 4y ago
Exactly this. This is the same as the reason to be concerned about counterfeit products — the seller has nothing to lose if the product is dangerous or substandard, since the reputation damage happens to someone else.
- hammock 4y ago
  Brands used to put “Established 1850” or whatever on their packaging. Now old brands aren’t respected by most consumers who are looking for that new thing they saw on an Instagram ad or learned from a YouTuber
  - lostdog 4y ago
    Most brands trashed their own reputations on purpose. For any given brand, I don't know whether I'm getting their solid 2000s quality products, or their now shitty 2020s quality products.
    - galangalalgol 4y ago
      That has happened a lot, but the gp is also correct, there are quality products that are inexpensive simply because they have been around forever, so people think they are boring or outdated. There are some really good deals on spirits for instance, that simply aren't popular, but have always been high quality. Eventually someone writes an article about it and they either raise the price, or it is unobtainable.

dalbasal 4y ago

Perhaps legally, these nitpicks are valid. Lawyers are nitpicky types. "Deception" defined in a legally functional way, tends to see things differently to average people using common sense. I agree with the parent, there is a lot of similarity here. You may be right that cloud kitchens are more haphazard and veer into challengeable trademark infringement. Old giants like Unilever tend to be better at legal precision. Besides that, they're both doing the same thing. They're using brands to obfuscate, artificially manage reputation, or achieve basic marketing goals... not tell consumers who they are buying from. It's all deceptive. Fake choice, fake competition, fake diversity. It's all abusive of trademarks. Trademarks are intended to help consumers know what they're buying, create some reputational accountability. Typical FMCG strategies, like unilever and these cloud kitchens, are all about neutralising this... allow them to enjoy positive reputation while neutralising the negative reputation. All of this is standard strategy, used often. For example. You are going for a "normal" supermarket experience: Many options for cereal, cheese, detergent, etc. Choice. But, you still want 70% cereal market share to go to vendor A. Maybe it's an internal vendor. So, fake branding. Fake diversity. Create the experience without creating the experience. As Cloud restaurants become a mature, they'll probably learn to avoid legal trouble. But, the game will still be the game. It's not cheating if you're drunk. The post, for example, wants to know which brands represent which kitchens. He doesn't want food from the bad kitchens. Tightening up trademark infringement will not help him.

ryandrake 4y ago
Exactly! Some companies use their brand to differentiate their good qualities from their competition, but other companies use thousands of brands to hide themselves, obfuscate, and confuse customers. If someone publicized that they found rat poison in one of Nestle's products, Nestle would rather people just stop buying that brand and not boycott its entire portfolio of brands. That's obfuscation and deception.

scotty79 4y ago

Results are the same. Spamming mental space of a consumer so that no matter what he buys he buys from them, but has illusion of choice.

trasz 4y ago

>Unilever creates different brands with same exacting manufacturing standards They absolutely don’t. Given brand of laundry detergents can be quite different between neighboring Poland and Germany, with the only visible difference being the set of languages on the label.

clairity 4y ago

what unilever is doing is segmenting the market, and filling each segment with a product offering. cloud kitchens are trying to do the same, but the issue is they're not segmenting on quality at all because they're fundamentally pursuing a (lower) cost strategy. you can't differentiate on quality if you have thin margins, as implied by the cost strategy. they're primarily segmenting on (a select subset) of cuisines, which doesn't get you as far as you might think in such a competitive market as prepared food delivery.