Posted on 07/18/2017 2:29:50 PM PDT by Excellence
The Street first reported that Amazon Technologies Inc. had filed for a meal-kit trademark that covers “prepared food kits composed of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, fruit and/or vegetables . . . ready for cooking and assembly as a meal.”
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
The ‘meal kits’ you reference are for plebes, such as myself (and perhaps yourself) who shop for ingredients themselves with the intention of combining our purchases in a myriad of different ways.
_These_ meal kits are put together for the oh-so-very-busy who do not want to be so gauche as to make a mistake or (horrors) combine the wrong elements incorrectly. They are shopped, packed and swiftly delivered to the recipients door with precise instructions. Thus, there is a concierge charge added on. Not to worry, since the top of the line ingredients and the added service charges are still way below the current per plate charges of the better bistros or the salary of personal chef and it makes the customers feel good about themselves to have cooked it themselves for a casual at-home evening of Netflix and chill.
Amazon has instant delivery knocked. They also have a market of people with more money than time (or other attributes that I’m sure come to mind). Bezos knows these folks and if they already have Prime, they’ll get a discount.
I suppose once pot is legal nationwide, Amazon will be in the dealer business, too.
But wait, there’s more:
http://gizmodo.com/amazons-newest-product-is-human-workers-it-sends-to-you-1796772401
I don’t think Amazon’s filing did much to Blue Apron’s IPO. The fact of the matter is they’re in a crowded marketplace (there at least 5 of these service nationally, and many grocery stores have something similar for their local market) that’s still fairly experimental and nobody is really quite sure what the long term profitability really is. At most all Amazon did was “declare” yet another national competitor. Meanwhile Blue Apron announced they didn’t actually very much runway money, so they were a bad investment even without Amazon.
If naming a particular packaged meal a “meal kit” is going to result in a lawsuit, I would think that a company like Blue Apron would create another name like “Chef’s Delight” and patent THAT. The people who buy their products already know that the meal comes with the spices or herbs necessary to prepare the meal. With a little tweaking of advertisement, Blue Apron could get the point across that their product comes with cooking instructions and the seasons needed to prepare said product.
They’re trying to make competing against them impossible by trademarking a phrase and concept.
Plebe is too kind a word for those will pay for overpriced hamburger helper.
If BA is all the rage, there’s a tragedy in there somewhere...
I haven't seen the filing, but assuming for the sake of argument they want to trademark the words, "MEAL KIT," the filing won't result in grant of a registration.
in general, the law does not allow a company to claim as its proprietary mark a generic term, that is, a word that identifies the type of product or service involved
Many have tried it before, sometimes they even succeed. Remember when Lotus claimed the trademark of software menus. A couple guys have claimed to trademark computer networks. The NCAA insists every March they have a trademark on tournament trees. At this point the trademark system only exists to be abused. The hit here goes to all the meal kit companies who weren’t smart enough to do it themselves.
Nothing wrong with it at all. And it ain’t hamburger helper. It’s real home cooked meals with real fresh ingredients. It’s just taking the trip to the grocery store, with all the “they don’t have that ingredient” problems that come with it out of fresh home cooking. I’ve looked into them but decided it was too top heavy for me, would have been great 10 years when I didn’t have a big recipe selection of my own. But really it’s a cool idea, I thin the best is Chef’d which searches most of the big recipe websites, pick a recipe, buy it, they ship you all the parts. The other services do their own, generally much narrower, recipe selection. Of course once you get a recipe once you have the recipe for life, put together a book and now you can do your own shopping.
Home cooking is all the rage. It’s why the restaurant industry is taking on water. And that’s very much a good thing. These companies are just finding a market in taking out the worst part of home cooking, let’s face it, nobody really likes going to the grocery store.
Not only that, they can make more money by simply announcing they’re going to buy a company than said company costs. That was definitely the case with Whole Foods.
As a bonus they also decimated the net worth of companies like Costco and Kroger.
We have a local company that does that already, we pick the meals, they deliver the ingredients, we cook them and eat them. Rather expensive. But hardly a “new idea”, although this company does it on a weekly basis, while Amazon seems more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. But speed of delivery can’t be trademarked, there’s pizza precedence on that.
The Left used to scream bloody murder about “Corporate America”, now the Left have BECOME that which they so reviled.
Costco seems to be doing fine
It’s like trademarking the concept of “car engine” rather than a specific design of engine.
The stock dropped almost 20%.
I tend to agree that its business is not going to be impacted much by the Amazon deal, though it’s hefty PE ratio may come down.
I’m 8 miles from the nearest store, but I can still beat *instant delivery* to the boonies.
I’ve been cooking for over 50 years and I do get tired of it, plus bored w/my menus. My latest thing is to browse the search engines and YT with a list of ingredients on hand and see what pops up. The most recent sure-fire winner is microwave cheese *crackers*.
I need to post a Google Alert for when Amazon markets Fairy Godmothers or bottled genies.
Yup. And it’s most of what gets trademarked right now. Predatory trademark abuse is the new get rich quick.
I have a trademark on this alphabet. Anyone who uses these letters owes me royalties!
ABCDEFGHIJKLMONPQRSTUVWXYZ
(Mine is just as valid and enforceable as Amazon’s)
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