NEWS

When trademark monitoring pays off

Release time:

2023-04-14 13:56

 

 

Sweetgreen, Inc.An American fast food chain that serves salad and cereal bowl meals, agreed to change the name of a new menu item,As a pairFast Food Competitors Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.response to a trademark infringement lawsuit filed.

 

Chipotle Mexican GrillSpecializing in custom-made dishes, tacos and burritos in front of customers.Sweetgreenstarted promoting on its website and social media.Burrito Bowl Chipotle ChickenAfter that, it was sent out first.StopwithTerminationNotice, and thereafter to the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

 

Chipotle Mexican Grillclaiming,Sweetgreenshows and uses 「CHIPOTLE®The word as a trademark, as the main word in a trade name, willChipotleThe first letter of the word is capitalized, sometimes also in all capital lettersCHIPOTLEThe word 」.

 

In addition, the plaintiff states that in Sweetgreenof variousBurrito Bowl Chipotle Chickenused in advertisingChipotleThe font and overall style of the word (font, background color, capitalization) are related to ChipotleThe two stylized trademarks are "almost identical 」.

 

SweetgreenAgree to change the name of its new burrito bowlChicken Chipotle Pepper Bowl, as the parties are currently working to resolve the lawsuit amicably.Chipotle Mexican GrillIn a statement, the importance of continued vigilance in the protection of intellectual property in the market is emphasized: continuous, market-wide intellectual property monitoring is essential to protect your brand and products from infringement, to identify infringers and to take prompt remedial action (e. g. to get competitors to change the name of their products and possible settlement payments). This is where the real payoff for conducting IP surveillance lies.