https://www.nrn.com/marketing/taco-bells-effort-liberate-taco-tuesday-nationwide-comes-fruition
The last holdout of Taco Tuesday, Gregory’s Restaurant and Bar in New Jersey, has relinquished the trademark, about four months after Taco John’s.
I see this as a win. It's absurd that anyone can own the term Taco Tuesday. It's literally a noun and a day of the week
Do you not remember the youtube drama over someone claiming the word "react"?
That was only 1 word...
I'm really surprised that this is the top post here.
It's not just a noun and a day of the week. It's a noun and a day of the week used to formally sell tacos.
This is Taco Bell using its size and wealth to take something from smaller players so that it could make money with it.
And the smallest players have always had absolutely nothing to worry about. Part of trademark law is that you must defend it. That can be just a letter.
Well no, they couldn't. The article literally says that prior to this only that one bar in New Jersey could use it because they had a statewide trademark on it. Because they dropped it, anyone can now use it including other small bars in Jersey.
What this is doing is ensuring it remains open for use by anyone. Taco Bell, Taco Johns, Taco Suzy, whatever. Before, anyone could register for the trademark if no one else had, and start screwing over other small players.
This is Taco Bell using its size and wealth to take something from smaller players so that it could make money with it.
This is bullshit. The other companies can claim that they're abandoning their marks due to cost but the truth of the matter is these marks should not have been issued. Neither were the first to use "Taco Tuesday." The phrase "Taco Tuesday" has entered everyday parlance. Unless you live near one of these restaurants you may not even know they run a "Taco Tuesday" and, most important of all, you may not even realize that they have a trademark on the term because it's so generic.
And that's the real issue, and the reason they abandoned the mark. Any IP attorney would have looked at this told them it was a complete waste of money to defend because they never should have been granted the marks in the first place.
My favorite bar here in town has a letter from Taco John's framed on the wall explaining why they had to change the name of their weekly taco special.
Because of their prices I'd basically given up on Taco Bell except for the value menu. But now every item that was $1 jumped to $1.5 (and everything else went up with it) so I'm cutting out Taco Bell completely. A few months back one of their limited time offers was $5 but when ordered à la carte was $12.47 -- that kinda revealed just how (unreasonably) skewed their profit margins must be.
It used to be $5-10 to feel gross and full, now it's $15-20 and takes 15 minutes both inside or drive through. I haven't been back in a couple years because of price and incompetence, there's better options for cheaper and quicker. Sheetz the gas station has been nailing Amerimexican for years if you're north east.
My local gas station attached Mexican joint has been cranking out local amazing cuisine for years, I would literally never even consider Taco Bell
It's like $12 for a crunchwrap meal in my super low CoL town. Wemdy's still has their $5 buggie bag. I used to love Taco Bell but it now costs more than freaking Chipotle.
$5.69 for a crunchwrap in my relatively high CoL town. $5.99 for a "build your own cravings box" that's kinda like a biggie bag but maybe slightly less food and the specialty item can be a crunchwrap.
Build your own cravings box is amazing. Where I live you can’t order it in-store, it’s online order exclusive. But I think some locations don’t do it, which is sad.
I still love the food, but Taco Bell is one of the most expensive fast food places around me.
They never have deals. Everyone else has something like a 2 for $6 and/or they offer good coupons.
I only go when I want to have the specific flavor profile they create. If I want actual Mexican food, they're my absolute last option
Yeah but that Breakfast Steak Crunchwrap with extra creamy jalapeño sauce…
Greatest fast food breakfast item. And I’ve eaten an embarrassing amount of fast food breakfast.
The over-reliance on apps and the privacy/security implications that entails is a separate issue for me. I also don't have the Google Play Store (or the associated underlying services) that all the apps require to function on my phone (CalyxOS). Comcast was decertifying my ancient modem so I finally bought a new one. When I needed to swap the hardware id info over and called their support line all of their workflows now apparently rely on using their app. When I told them it was between them supplying me with a vanilla smartphone or me cancelling my service because I didn't own any devices that supported their app they were then magically able to just update some fields in their database and my modem was set-up with no mobile phones or apps involved. I've had a passion for technology my entire life but its current predatory and user hostile default state just makes me hate it.
In Scandinavia it's Taco Friday. Who has the rights to that? Who needs to get sued? Who should we be mad at?
As far as I know, nobody. They understand the social good. And they celebrate it with tacos promptly when the workday ends at 4 PM.
Fuck Taco Bell. Taco Bell only won because Taco John's didn't have deep enough pockets to defend the trademarked term they legally had.
Look, fuck the gross Yum Brands mega conglomerate, but the idea that someone could own the trademark to "Taco Tuesday" is fucking ridiculous.
Welcome to the US, where the rules are made up and the goalposts are set by the deepest pockets.
What makes it fucking stupid? Is it because it reaches a critical mass of usage, so the people get to take it back? Something else?
As an aside, I have a new product idea: Zoidberg’s Super Bowl of Cereal: I’m Lovin’ It!
Is it because it reaches a critical mass of usage, so the people get to take it back?
It's not my point but that's literally how it legally works in the US. That's why Velcro insists on calling their product "Velcro brand hook and loop fastener"
That's actually pretty common too. Just off the top of my head: Cleanex, Xerox and Nintendo have all had to do similar things to protect their trademark.
They really started padding it towards the end to get to 50 but the first half or so of this listicle has a lot of good examples, quite a few that I didn't know
https://www.impactplus.com/blog/50-everyday-words-that-started-as-brands-and-trademarks
TIL about trademark erosion. Also, thanks for a proper response.
Trademark erosion, or genericization, is a special case of antonomasia related to trademarks. It happens when a trademark becomes so common that it starts being used as a common name and the original company has failed to prevent such use.
I guess Nintendo fought it successfully by getting the world to call the thing a “game console” rather than calling it a Nintendo. Hoover failed to defend the verb “Hoover” and lost it.
In this case, it just seems like the win is for Taco Bell and their efforts to gain, use and profit from the term. And that makes it feel a little gross and brutish. They could prove me wrong though.
Sometimes a soulless megacorp is the one in the right.
https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/
It's a food item and a day of the week.
Yeah, "super bowl" also shouldn't be trade marked, It's far too generalized to be reasonable. Zoidberg should be as that is a character in a show and should be claimed by the creators with exception given to people whom have that name in real life referring to their own products.
I'm lovin' it also shouldn't be trademarked. It's literally just an expression of joy.
I don't get why this has to be a difficult concept. McDonald's didn't create anything new. The NFL didn't fabricate the concept of extraordinary dishware. It is absolutely nonsense that anyone with enough money and influence can just choose a couple pre-existing words out of the English language and claim ownership.
No, Taco Bell won because WHO THE FUCK IS TACO JOHN'S AND WHY THE FUCK DO THEY OWN TACO TUESDAY?
Did you know that two companies had ownership of that trademark? Does anyone associate "Taco Tuesday" with anything but being alliterative? Do people immediately think of Taco John's or Gregory's when they hear "Taco Tuesday?"
No.
They probably think of every elementary school that had a Taco Tuesday at least once a month. They probably think of the Lego Movie. They probably think they're hilarious and just made it up for the first time.
Even if you knew of Taco John's and knew they had Taco Tuesday, did you know that it was their trademark?
Taco John's did not relinquish the mark because they couldn't fight it. They relinquished it for the same reason Gregory's did... they knew their claim to the mark was MINIMAL at best and it would be trivial to show common usage of the term that would render it generic.
I actually do think of Taco John's when I think of Taco Tuesday because that was their big special thing for decades.
But I also don't care if 'Taco Tuesday' is something you can trademark. If Taco Bell wants to use it, fine.
You mean everyone that lives in a state where this regional restaurant operates.
https://www.scrapehero.com/store/wp-content/uploads/maps/Taco_Johns_USA.png
The nearest one is 400 miles away from me.
Look at all that Midwest. Surely these tacos have to be cursed stains on the name. Especially from John. John ain't know no tacos.
I can't shit talk taco john's because we have Jim boy's tacos out here in Norrhern California lol
They put Parmesan cheese on the shells
So if I read the article correctly, they owned the trademark to "taco Tuesday" in States they didn't even have stores in? "Intellectual property" is such a farce
No, it's not a fucking farce you just have minimal knowledge of how this shit works. Which why the fuck would you be lame enough to know it?
So here's how it works, because I AM that lame...
A trademark can apply to any number of limited areas. It can be limited to a geographical region, it can be limited to industry, it can be limited to a specific service, it can be limited to a specific product.
If I start a restaurant called "McBurgerPlace" in NYC and it turns out there's already a McBurgerPlace in San Francisco... well it doesn't matter because the San Francisco McBurgerPlace only has one location. They may have a trademark on the name, but infringement of a mark hinges on the concept of confusion in the marketplace. Will someone reasonably confuse MBPNYC with MBPSF? The answer is no. They're on opposite sides of the country, in different markets, serving different menus. There's no infringement because the market for each is limited to their nearby geographic region. Let's say I'm better at burgers. I start to expand. Soon, I operate 363,824 MBP restaurants worldwide. I am the king of food. Except that I'm not. I can't break into the Bay Area. Why can't I? Because that's MBPSF's territory. They were there first. They had the trademark prior to my registration. As such, I cannot enter that market with that name. Doing so would threaten their mark and lead to a lawsuit that I would almost certainly lose. It would be much easier to just rename my restaurants in that area BcPlurgerMace and get on with life.
This exact thing happened to Burger King. https://www.businessmatters925.com/post/burger-king-vs-burger-king-trademark-infringement-case-study
Look at a local business directory and see how many places are named "Five Star." Laundry, plumbing, electric, movers, etc. You can have that many "Five Star" businesses because they operate in different market segments. Nobody is going to call Five Star Plumbing thinking they're actually calling Five Star Movers. There's no competition. There is no dilution of the mark. There is no infringement.
Trademark and IP law is fucking stupid unless you're a goddamn moron and waste considerable amounts of your life reading way too much about it. For money. Because it's your job.
Life Pro Tip: Don't be a paralegal.
No, I understand how it works, nothing in your rambling justification is new to me. This one case is not the only reason why I think "intellectual property" is stupid. Just like with crypto weirdos, people who support "intellectual property" absolutely cannot fathom that someone knows how it works and doesn't like it.
Your explanation is interesting (and I learned a thing or two), but it fails to explain how such a term as Taco Tuesday could be considered a trademark in locations where the owner of the trademark is implanted.
Because trademarks are about market. There is no reason for a business in California to have a say over what a business in New York is named if neither will be entering the other's market.
It happens sometimes that two businesses will have the same mark in different markets but one outpaces the other in growth. If one starts encroaching on the other it typically comes down to a determination of which one was used first in that area. This is why you have the example I gave. It's also why Burger King is called Hungry Jack's in Australia.
Another issue is one of identification. Is this mark associated with this business? Unless you happen to live in an area where there's a Taco John's did you even know they existed? I had never heard of them because the nearest one to me in is fuckin' Arkansas about 400 miles from here. They're concentrated in the midwest. It's a regional chain. Why should they have any claim to a trademark in Florida? Simple answer is: They shouldn't and don't. The term is too generic and has been used by places that sell tacos for longer than this company has been around. They knew they would lost just on basic facts and no matter how they try to spin it as "BIG COMPANY BAD" the fact is they shouldn't have had the mark in the first place.
Oh wow, I had no idea there were two of them in my state, (but other side of it from the major cities) - I definitely first heard of it in relation to the copyright claim.
They should have never been granted the trademark based on prioriry. They did not coin or use the term first. They are not fighting because they know they wouldn't survive a challenge which is why they just bullied small shops who themselves didn't have the pockets to defend themselves.
I don't think that's what happened? Based on this article and another one I read, it seems that now the Taco Tuesday trademark is relinquished meaning anyone can use it. I'm guessing taco bell would rather everyone be able to use it including them rather than it being locked down by someone who's not them.
Indeed that was the case:
According to The Strange History of Taco Tuesday, the promotional phrase was started in 1982 by a chain called Taco John’s based out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. In fact, Taco John’s placed a registered trademark on the phrase in 1989 to attach it to their brand. They filed a lawsuit against another restaurant chain after seeing that it was used, but the lawsuit resulted in bad press, so they have stopped enforcing their trademark. They still use it as their brand’s signature, and rightfully so!
https://bennystacos.com/taco-tuesday-legendary-tradition/
So Taco John gave up the trademark and now any restaurant can advertise "Taco Tuesday" specials.
No-one is saying it isn't.
But what this person is saying is that they made two versions of the film, with Pizza Hut edited in post, and it doesn't look great. Lip syncing is not... good.
Taco Bell may not be the hero we want, but having a trademark on “Taco Tuesday” is insane and I’m glad they won
I read that article as a large corporation bullied a small company into getting rid of their trademark. I could be wrong
That was themselves bullying even smaller companies from using the most basic and obvious alliterative advertising.
