{"id":76,"date":"2010-12-20T07:45:16","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T14:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ipmetrics.net\/blog\/?p=76"},"modified":"2010-12-20T07:45:16","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T14:45:16","slug":"a-never-ending-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/litigation\/case-law\/a-never-ending-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Never Ending Story?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, Darden Concepts, Inc. and GMRI. Inc. filed a trademark infringement suit against the Briad Restaurant Group companies in the Southern California U.S. District Court (Docket No. 10-cv-2077 , S.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2010). \u00a0 Most consumers are familiar with the brands of the three restaurants involved; Darden owns the <strong><em>Olive Garden<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Red Lobster<\/em><\/strong> chains (among others), while Briad owns the San Diego franchise for <strong><em>T.G.I. Friday&#8217;s<\/em><\/strong> restaurants.  The issue is the alleged infringement of Darden&#8217;s well-known\u00a0<strong>Never Ending Pasta Bowl<\/strong> mark, which is federally registered for classes 30 (Cooked food products) and 43 (Restaurant services) and used in <em>Olive Garden<\/em> restaurants. \u00a0<em>T.G.I. Friday&#8217;s <\/em>franchisee is alleged to infringe this mark by using the phrase &#8220;<strong>Never Ending Shrimp<\/strong>&#8221; in advertising beginning last August. \u00a0Moreover, Darden claims the extension of the mark to &#8220;shrimp&#8221; alleging its <em>Red Lobster<\/em> restaurants have regularly used the promotion slogan &#8220;all-you-can-eat shrimp.&#8221;  The case is still in the early stages and the defendant has yet to\u00a0answer\u00a0the complaint, but several questions arise in our minds:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is there a likelihood of confusion among patrons between &#8220;pasta&#8221; and &#8220;shrimp&#8221;?<\/li>\n<li>Does the public make the connection between <em>Olive Garden<\/em> and <em>Red Lobster<\/em>?<\/li>\n<li>Does the public uniquely associate &#8220;Never Ending &#8230;&#8221; with Darden&#8217;s properties, or is it simply a descriptive phrase?<\/li>\n<li>What recoverable profits can be directly attributed to the infringement, assuming Briad was to be found liable?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In our experience, these types of trademark infringement cases require a thorough analysis of the variety of factors that drive consumers to each restaurant, in order to adequately apportion the impact of the secondary mark in its proper context. \u00a0A multi-variate analysis, minding the factor checklists that have been developed in the case law, in conjunction with a current &#8220;contributory assets&#8221; valuation are most likely going to be necessary.<\/p>\n<p>We shall continue to monitor this case, located in our own &#8220;backyard.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This current case deals with the alleged infringement of Darden&#8217;s well-known &#8220;Never Ending Pasta Bowl&#8221; registered mark in use in its &#8220;Olive Garden&#8221; restaurants, by local &#8220;T.G.I. Friday&#8217;s&#8221; franchisee&#8217;s use of the phrase &#8220;Never Ending Shrimp&#8221;.  Moreover, Darden claims the extension of the mark to &#8220;shrimp&#8221; alleging its Red Lobster restaurants have regularly used the promotion slogan &#8220;all-you-can-eat shrimp.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,10,21],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xROl-1e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipmetrics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}