Taco John’s Claims Rights in Taco Tuesday

The “Taco Tuesday” battle exploded on Twitter, blogs, NewsOK, Fox 25 News, and even Facebook.  Taco John’s owns U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,572,589 for the mark TACO TUESDAY (seen below).  It appears that Taco John’s attorneys sent the Oklahoma City based Iguana Mexican Grill a letter notifying Iguana of Taco John’s alleged rights and registration.  Taco John’s also ordered Iguana to cease and desist usage of the hashtag #tacotuesday.

What started as an attempt by Taco John’s to assert its trademark rights, resulted in some fantastic PR for Iguana Grill.  For those of you that are not from Oklahoma, you should know that as Oklahomans, we stick together.  Iguana Grill has generously invested time and money into the community through volunteerism and food donations.  The Oklahoma City community is extremely loyal to Iguana and when everyone caught wind of Taco John’s requests, a frenzy of tweets ensued.  The community rallied around Iguana by voicing their support for the usage of “Taco Tuesday” on Twitter and Facebook.  Fans also showed their support by gathering at Iguana.  Iguana sold a record number of tacos on Tuesday – approximately 2,000 tacos.

Tuesday’s tweets included things like:

• “petition @tacojohns to stop copyright enforcement of #tacotuesday hashtag”
• “#tacotuesday is used all over CA! But qdoba uses #tacomonday. Who want #tacowednesday…Patent pending”
• “Potential new @iguanaokc promotion: @TacoJohns Sucks Tuesday #tacotuesday (They don’t have a patent on that one.)”
• “So does anyone know if ThirstyThursday has a copyright? If so, Who will hold a big party to celebrate the end? #tacotuesday”
• “Their trademark can’t keep the customers from calling it #TacoTuesday”

@TacoJohns even tweeted:

“Taco John’s holds the copyright to Taco Tuesday giving us the exclusive right to use and protect it.”

(Emphasis Added.)

So which one is it?  What exactly is Taco John’s trying to assert?  A patent?  A copyright?  A trademark?  It seems that even @TacoJohns needs some guidance as to the differences between copyrights and trademarks.  Taco John’s claim is centered around its alleged trademark, not copyright, for the phrase “Taco Tuesday.”

Generally speaking, patents protect inventions, copyrights protect creative works of authorship like music, photos, videos, and literary works, and trademarks protect brands.  Taco John’s is alleging that Taco Tuesday is their brand name, that they have trademark rights in it, and that Iguana cannot use it without their permission.  Are there legal arguments that could be made in response to Taco John’s?    Sure.  Does it matter that several other companies use the phrase “Taco Tuesday?”  Possibly.  But that is another post for another day.

For more information on the difference between patents, trademarks, and copyrights check out this PHOSITA blog post posted earlier last year.

Posted by Emily E. Campbell, August 4, 2010 at 6:43 am
Permalink: Taco John’s Claims Rights in Taco Tuesday
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New Blog to Check Out: Financial Aspects of Intellectual Property

One of my new favorite blogs is the Financial Aspects of Intellectual Property blog by the folks at the Innovation Asset Group.

According to their “about” page:

Innovation Asset is a leading provider of software for intellectual property (IP) and contracts management. Founded in 2002, we set out to design fresh solutions to the challenges today’s companies face in managing their intangible assets. We’ve quickly gained a national reputation for our flagship product, Decipher™.

So far, their blog has really been a fun and informative read – dealing with meta trends in intellectual property acquisition and valuation.  As a sample to whet your appetite:

We are seeing an evolution – perhaps revolution. Not just in terms of the recognition of IP as the fundamentally core asset for businesses today; but also in terms of the way in which that IP is managed (I think “where” remains the same).

Initially, IP is managed out of the legal department. In a non-strategic mindset, IP management equates to docketing in some of these companies.

As companies embrace the strategic importance of IP and understand the need to move beyond simply docketing, there is an evolution of the role of the legal department. Much the way IT departments in corporate America evolved from a cost center and service provider to a strategic enabler of the business in the past couple of decades, legal departments are making a similar evolution today.

If you picture a pyramid similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and similar to the one described in “Edison in the Boardroom,” the bottom of the pyramid represents the least sophisticated IP companies, and the top of the pyramid the most sophisticated.

Well worth a read for anyone interested in intellectual property and what I would consider a “must read” for those within corporate intellectual property departments who must identify, protect and communicate the importance of intellectual property assets.

Sorry for the disruption in the middle of all the “Rules Mess” – we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, September 26, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Permalink: New Blog to Check Out: Financial Aspects of Intellectual Property
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New FedCirc.us Search Tool Released

The master plan for the FedCirc.us site includes several web features designed to deliver patent caselaw information in a more effective manner.  The first – the GimmeTen! feature – has quickly become the most popular page on the site…and for good reason.  Not familiar with it?  Simply bookmark http://10.fedcirc.us and visit regularly.  That page always provides concise summaries of the ten most recently posted case reviews.  We’re confident you’ll quickly be hooked.

Today we announce the second feature in our bag of tricks – the travelling FedCirc.us search engine.  By following the steps below, you’ll be able to search the FedCirc.us site from anywhere on the web.

The best part is the simplicity — 5 easy steps (4 for most people).  Five minutes tops.

1.  Make sure you’re using either Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2.0 as your browser.  If you’re not, download the latest IE here or Firefox here (both are free).  For the record, FedCirc.us is optimized for Firefox.

2.  Start your browser.

3.  Visit FedCirc.us.

4.  Pull down the drop-down search box in the upper right hand corner and select “Add FedCirc.us” (in Firefox) or select “FedCirc.us” with the gold star next to it (in IE, see image at right).

5.  Surf the web.  Whenever you want to search the site, simply enter a search string in the box in the right hand corner, pull down the list, select FedCirc.us, and hit return.  You can do this from any page on the web…and you’ll immediately be transported to a listing of search results from the site.

I’ve quickly gotten used to searching by party name or full case name as I’m reading on the web.  This little trick has changed my surfing habits for the better…it’s a wonderfully efficient way to find information quickly.  We hope you find it useful as well.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know.  You can e-mail Matt directly at jmb @ rtipllc.com.

Enjoy!

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, February 15, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Permalink: New FedCirc.us Search Tool Released
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The Resolution(tm) — a new Fedcirc.us Product

FedCirc.us (Matt/Steve/and I) announced earlier today the availability of a free preview issue of The Resolution, the inaugural issue of our quarterly magazine, The FedCirc.us Reader.  Download the .pdf here.

According to Matt:

The Resolution will give you a sneak-peak at the features of the magazine.  It’s jam-packed with all sorts of patent-caselaw goodness, including a ‘Trend Spotting’ article, a featured case review, prosecution- and litigation-focused digests, chronological and alphabetical listings of cases from last quarter (including summaries), and a fun “Quotables” section that includes some of our favorite quotes from cases issued during last quarter.

For this issue, we’ve even included a brief note about the story behind the FedCirc.us name and domain.

We think you’ll agree that the magazine is an exciting and effective new tool for staying current on patent caselaw developments.

Of course, the free preview issue includes subscription details for the magazine.  The site will be ready to accept subscription payments starting tomorrow.

Please download our first copy and let us know what you think.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, January 31, 2007 at 10:20 am
Permalink: The Resolution(tm) — a new Fedcirc.us Product
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Recent jobs on LegalMojo

Recent IP jobs (or at least jobs the IP crowd might be interested in) listed on the LegalMojo legal jobs site:

• Director of Federal Government Affairs — MICRON Washington, DC

• Group Counsel Converted Products – AVERY DENNISON Mentor, Ohio

• Patent Attorney – GPCI Suffern, New York

LegalMojo RSS feed:  http://www.legalmojo.com/feedburner.php

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, January 16, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Permalink: Recent jobs on LegalMojo
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Research Help: How many patent attorneys sit on corporate board of directors?

Help! 

I know the erudite readers of PHOSITA may have valuable information I need:

I am working on article regarding the makeup of corporate board of directors and I am trying to get a sense of how many patent attorneys are directors.

If you know of anyone or have a suspicion, please send it my way.

Thanks and hopefully this will be picked up around the IP corner of the blog-o-sphere… hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint…

Image via Flickr.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, October 30, 2006 at 10:50 am
Permalink: Research Help: How many patent attorneys sit on corporate board of directors?
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Where is Dunlap Codding and Rogers Located?

Well, our main office is located in beautiful Oklahoma City!  We also have satellite offices in Washington, D.C. and Perrysburg, Ohio. 

This post is actually a test of a new blog posting software by Microsoft – Windows Live Writer (WLW).  One of the interesting features of WLW is the ability to publish maps, like this one which was created solely within WLW.

While this is certainly a very cool feature, I still enjoy Blogjet and believe that Dmitry’s efforts to introduce Version 2.0 of Blogjet will continue to push the boundaries of blogging tools available.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, October 20, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Permalink: Where is Dunlap Codding and Rogers Located?
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LegalMojo – Lawyer Job Board

Well… the Rethink(ip) folks have been promising the unveiling of a number of projects this fall … so, without further ado…

World, meet LegalMojo… LegalMojo, meet the World. 

Now, y’all play nice!

One of the things that we have really enjoyed in our collaborative efforts is the ability to “matchmake” lawyers and other professionals with companies and firms that need their talents.  In fact, we have been doing so much “matchmaking” that we decided to offer a professional site and environment where job seekers can meet up with employers. 

The site has been up about a week now and we are already ahead of all our projected stats — the number and quality of job postings is amazing and the number of people visiting the site has sky-rocketed. 

So – if you are a job seeker, especially an intellectual property professional – head on over to LegalMojo and find something that fits. 

If you are a potential employer – get your ad up quick and enjoy premiere placement.  Placing an ad is easy and painless and we guarantee you won’t find a better value.

So – get your ‘mojo’ working!

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, October 7, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Permalink: LegalMojo – Lawyer Job Board
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Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

We’ve done it again! Yes, that’s right, we’ve discovered yet another way to cure your boredom blues. But seriously, this is actually interesting stuff. When you get a chance, check out www.oyez.com. Oyez® provides access to over 2,000 hours of Supreme Court audio, biographical information about the justices, and a virtual tour of portions of the Supreme Court building including the judges chambers.
I first learned of Oyez® in my constitutional law class when my professor played audio clips of oral arguments from several first amendment cases. In addition to first amendment cases, Oyez® offers a variety of other cases including several noted patent, trademark, and copyright cases.
If you are curious where the term Oyez comes from or want to know other facts about Oyez®, you can check it out here. F.Y.I., the phrase “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” (AKA “Here ye! Here ye!”) is used by a court marshal to introduce the opening of the court.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, October 5, 2006 at 4:25 pm
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Wiki this

The USPTO has put the brakes on their practice of citing Wikipedia as a source regarding patent validity.  Although Wiki is putting an emphasis on quality, there is always a risk using an encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit it.  I admit that I’ve checked Wikipedia on everything from Big Brother to Walmart, but I can’t imagine using it as a reference since there is always a possibility that my next door neighbor (the crazy one with the cats) authored it.  Sweet lady?  Yes.  Reliable?  Not so much.

Instead of allowing Wikipedia as a source, the USPTO may take the Wiki concept and use it in a pilot program for patent review.   This is in an effort to decrease the backlog and burden on examiners.  Users of the system would be allowed to weigh in on a patent under review similar to the same way you can add to Wikipedia.  Of course, this includes competitors, so to alleviate sabotaging, the program has a rating system and the examiner receives only the highest rated posts.  If all goes well, it looks like the system will roll out in 2007. 

Finally, on my quest in finding Wiki-type information regarding patent law, I ran across Wiki Democracy – a website with a very interesting concept.  Imagine the United States had no laws, what laws would you impose?  Of course, I checked the intellectual property section and to date there are no posts.  For as much talk and discussion revolves around patent reform, you would think someone would have posted at least one law.  Maybe it’s a lot harder than it looks.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, September 1, 2006 at 11:02 am
Permalink: Wiki this
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