4 ms·

> Waffle House (or any other brand) must and 100% always will send out a C&D for trademark misusage, otherwise they lose legal protection for that trademark. T

> Waffle House (or any other brand) must and 100% always will send out a C&D for trademark misusage, otherwise they lose legal protection for that trademark. Time to change that braindead law then. Copyright has a "fair use" provision, and trademark law could be adapted similarly.

hinkley 1y ago
You can use a trademark any time you want. How would brand recognition work if people couldn't talk about Mustangs and Corvettes? What you can't do is claim it's yours. Or let people think it's yours.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > You can use a trademark any time you want. No, you can't. If you could use it whenever yoh want, we wouldnt have the concept of “nominative fair use” as the exceptional case of when and how you are allowed to use someone else’s mark in commerce without permission.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    Mmm. “Anything” is maybe hyperbole. You can’t represent yourself or product as a brand. But you can write a scathing review about them and use their name and nobody can stop you. That wouldn’t be a trademark situation, it would be defamation, not infringement.
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kopecs 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use
gorkish 1y ago
To me this whole situation seems to be a pretty good example of what not to do if faced with a copyright claim. It's tempting to see outfits like The Onion or Cards Against Humanity doing this kind of thing and feel like you are bulletproof and can do it too. But it's pretty easy to tell when these 'open letter' responses have not received legal review. Waffle House had a legitimate claim and acted on their obligation to their trademark. There is a pretty good argument that Waffle House continues to have a claim. They probably wont do anything because its, frankly, a waste of time. This could probably have been avoided entirely if copyrights were correctly respected from the beginning.
- cycomanic 1y ago
  What exactly is the trademark violation that they are "obliged" to defend? Somebody putting location and opening times of their restaurants on a map?
  - gorkish 1y ago
    In this case it was their logo mark. AFAIK that's the only claim that they actually made as well. Reading anything else into this story is ridiculous.
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hinkley 1y ago

You can use a trademark any time you want. How would brand recognition work if people couldn't talk about Mustangs and Corvettes? What you can't do is claim it's yours. Or let people think it's yours.

dragonwriter 1y ago
> You can use a trademark any time you want. No, you can't. If you could use it whenever yoh want, we wouldnt have the concept of “nominative fair use” as the exceptional case of when and how you are allowed to use someone else’s mark in commerce without permission.
- hinkley 1y ago
  Mmm. “Anything” is maybe hyperbole. You can’t represent yourself or product as a brand. But you can write a scathing review about them and use their name and nobody can stop you. That wouldn’t be a trademark situation, it would be defamation, not infringement.

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kopecs 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

gorkish 1y ago

To me this whole situation seems to be a pretty good example of what not to do if faced with a copyright claim. It's tempting to see outfits like The Onion or Cards Against Humanity doing this kind of thing and feel like you are bulletproof and can do it too. But it's pretty easy to tell when these 'open letter' responses have not received legal review. Waffle House had a legitimate claim and acted on their obligation to their trademark. There is a pretty good argument that Waffle House continues to have a claim. They probably wont do anything because its, frankly, a waste of time. This could probably have been avoided entirely if copyrights were correctly respected from the beginning.

cycomanic 1y ago
What exactly is the trademark violation that they are "obliged" to defend? Somebody putting location and opening times of their restaurants on a map?
- gorkish 1y ago
  In this case it was their logo mark. AFAIK that's the only claim that they actually made as well. Reading anything else into this story is ridiculous.

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