Posted on 07/24/2014 8:32:30 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority wants a pizza shop in the Florida Keys to pay a big toll for using a logo similar to the Garden State Parkway's green and yellow signs.
The agency sued Jersey Boardwalk Pizza Tuesday in federal court over the logo it uses for its two pizza shops and on merchandise sold online. It said in the suit that the company is trying to trade upon the fame of the Garden State Parkway logo to attract customers and potential franchisees.
JoyAnn Kenny, a lawyer with the Red Bank-based firm of Marks & Klein LLP, which represents the company, defended its use of the logo in a letter to turnpike authority lawyers included in the suit. She wrote that there's no way anyone would confuse a highway and a pizza place 1,300 miles away.
"Given the very distinct difference in the goods and services offered by our respective clients (yours being a governmental agency providing highway maintenance and travel related services exclusively in the state of New Jersey - ours being a franchisor of pizza restaurants providing the opportunity to provide delicious pizza and Italian food to patrons of its licensed restaurants), there is no plausible likelihood of confusion," she wrote.
The turnpike authority sued over two logos, one used by the pizza business and one by a franchising business it owns. Kenny said that logo for the restaurants was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and has been used since April 2011.
New Jersey says that "there is no question" that the logos "were directly copied and appropriated from Plaintiff's famous Garden State Parkway Logo." It asked a judge to require the company to stop using the logos and to destroy any merchandise that includes it.
It calls the Garden State Parkway one of the most iconic and well known highways in the country. Its logo includes a green map of the state with a line showing the highway on a yellow background with the words "Garden State Parkway" written in yellow on a green background.
Jersey Boardwalk Pizza also includes a green map of the state and its title written in yellow on a green background.
I wished this was sourced; it is not where I first heard the story, and I’m aware that Snopes isn’t the bible.
http://www.snopes.com/lost/kfc.asp
I find lots of other sources, but none that are well sourced.
No one is going to salivate over a Garden State Parkway sign mistaking it for a pizza place and vice versa. The only one drooling is some worthless, needs their ass kicked, bureaucrat.
Wait, Pontiac is an Indian thing, so the name is racist, so there’s a whole nother layer of confusion about who is more politically correct there.....
Seeing the logos side by side, I would say there are significant and distinct differences between the two. The Pizza version does not have a yellow stripe down the middle (probably signifying the parkway but also possibly Chris Christie’s enormous backside) and lops off the top and bottom of the state cameo. Then, of course, there is the lettering.
How could the NJ state entity argue that it is harmed in any way by the use of a similar logo by a pizza company a thousand miles away would seem to be a bigger stretch than the parkway itself.
The Pizza logo looks better, but nothing good really ever comes out of Jersey. I would stay away from pizza made in the south, it just isn’t the same.
Who would be confused to think the pizza they were ordering was produced by the Garden State Parkway?
KFC's Wikipedia page doesn't mention that.
"KFC" was not a trademark dodge. Rather, it was a health dodge back in 1991. According to Kyle Craig, the guy in charge at the time, "The key is to reduce dependence on the word 'fried.'" Some questioned the wisdom of shedding such a well-known name. But Craig had the data: "The name KFC got over 99% recognition when shown with the Colonel's mug."
The urban myth was that they had to change it because it wasn’t really chicken.
I see you got to this first.
The more extreme version of the myth was: You can’t call it chicken anymore once you cut the feet off.
You can’t even get a real bagel in NYC anymore. They used to be small, dense, kind of gray on the inside—and they tasted of malt of something. Unique and addictive. The real ones are also boiled before baking. No one bothers with that step anymore.
Now they are just bread. The different toppings are an attempt to give them the character they have lost. One Bad Boy and one My Three Sons, please.
How about some Kentucky Derby Bourbon? Plenty of dollar-signs in that SERP. Doubt there's a trademark issue.
Governments should not be permitted to hold trademarks or copyrights or patents.
Everybody's looking for a payday.
“I wished this was sourced; it is not where I first heard the story, and Im aware that Snopes isnt the bible.”.............
It’s has to be true, I read it on the Internet.
I didn’t say I was buying it either, but there is a case.
I bet it happens all the time. People drive up to the NJ Turnpike tollbooth and ask for a large cheese pizza.
(You’d think NJ would be happy to have ay company use the word “Jersey” in its name. Perhaps the pizza shop should change its name to “Big Fat Nanny State Pizza”.)
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