Restaurateurs Embroiled in Trademark Beef
A rising star of the farm-to-table restaurant world is facing off against an industry titan in a trademark dispute over a simple name: The Kitchen. The spat pits Kimbal Musk, younger brother of entrepreneur Elon Musk, against restaurateur Wolfgang Puck. over simple name: The Kitchen
A rising star of the farm-to-table restaurant world is facing off against an industry titan in a trademark dispute over a simple name: The Kitchen.
The spat pits Kimbal Musk, younger brother of famed entrepreneur Elon Musk, against Wolfgang Puck, whose business empire includes more than a dozen different restaurant concepts, cookbooks, and packaged food and cookware under his brand. Kimbal Musk started a chain of farm-to-table restaurants 12 years ago called The Kitchen, which now has four locations in Colorado and Chicago, along with a more casual version called The Kitchen Next Door, which has three locations.
More than three years ago, Mr. Musk says he had a lunch meeting with Mr. Puck, whom he says he had long admired. The two dined at Mr. Puck’s famous Spago restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif., where Mr. Musk said they discussed his concept of locally sourced fare.
Mr. Puck, through an attorney, declined to comment.“We don’t comment on pending litigation,” said his lawyer, Joan Kupersmith Larkin, a partner at the Los Angeles office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
“He gave me practical advice about not growing too fast. He was really nice,” Mr. Musk recalled in an interview. “It was a beautiful hour-long conversation.”Last summer, Mr. Musk said, he began receiving calls from friends in the hospitality industry asking him if he was planning to open a restaurant in Grand Rapids, Mich. He soon learned that a new restaurant had opened at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel called The Kitchen By Wolfgang Puck, where the recipes use “only the freshest, locally sourced ingredients,” according to its website.
Mr. Puck also opened a fast-casual restaurant in the same hotel called The Kitchen Counter. The Kitchen By Wolfgang Puck is scheduled to open an outlet in Washington Dulles International Airport in the first half of this year.
“I felt I was gut-punched,” Mr. Musk said. He said he tried to discuss it with Mr. Puck, who didn’t answer his calls, and tried unsuccessfully to persuade Mr. Puck’s company to change the name to “Wolfgang Puck’s Kitchen.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Musk, who owns three trademarks that include The Kitchen name, filed a notice with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office opposing the trademark applications Mr. Puck filed in April for The Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck and The Kitchen Counter by Wolfgang Puck.Marc Reiner, a New York trademark attorney who isn’t involved in the dispute, said the issue will come down to whether customers would be confused by the name and think that Mr. Puck’s restaurants are affiliated with Mr. Musk’s.
“The general principle is that it’s better to come up with a creative name,” he said. “I have a client who came up with the name ‘Almond’ for a bank and we had no problem with that.”
Source:WSJ
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