Technology

'Ghost Kitchens' Are The New Trademark Infringements You Didn't Even Realize Were Out There

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Have you heard of “ghost kitchens”?

I certainly hadn’t until recently. But it turns out that the double-whammy of expanding availability of online food delivery orders and the pandemic forcing people to use it has given birth to a new class of restaurant trading on marks and designs that give the eerie impression that the user is ordering from another, inevitably more famous competitor.

But before we get into ghost kitchens, let’s consider an example from 2018, before this took on a spectral dimension. Consider these logos:

Are they the same? No. But… you know.

Now consider the menus specifically. In-N-Out is famous for its Animal Style burger. So famous it slaps the ® right there on the menu. Grab-N-Go, on the other hand, delivers a Wild Style burger. It will shock you not at all to learn that they have the same ingredients. I’m leery of companies taking overzealous intellectual property stances, but this seems pretty straightforward. As you might expect, this similarity sparked a lawsuit.

But today this sort of “culinary pastiche” is even more rampant. In a world where restaurants no longer need a brick and mortar location to compete for the dining dollar, they’re free to adopt virtual presences that imitate all manner of trade dress.

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And while In-N-Out has the resources to track down and combat potential dilution out there, not every restaurant is so lucky.

That’s where Brainbase comes in. An established player in automated trademark protection, the company recently introduced new products to provide similar IP tools to small businesses that it already provides to companies like Crayola and Sanrio.

For mature IP hubs — like the aforementioned makers of Hello Kitty — Brainbase provides the legal department with tools to ensure marks are properly renewed, manage its myriad licensing arrangements, and provide business intelligence about enterprise-level IP deals. But Brainbase saw the need for smaller entities and used its expertise to develop File and Vault, new solutions designed to… well, the names kind of explain it all.

File is designed as a one-stop trademark filing tool that gives businesses an opportunity to verify the availability of their mark and file the requisite paperwork for a mere $199, a fraction of the cost of engaging attorneys.

Vault, on the other hand, is designed for protecting marks. Vault automatically renews registrations (for $149 per mark which is still a fraction of the cost of an attorney), monitors and reports IP infringements worldwide, and even generates C&D letters to streamline the enforcement process. This monitoring is $5/month.

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We talk a lot about technology as a tool to expand legal services to the have-nots and usually we walk away feeling that legal tech rarely addresses the traditional access to justice gap. But that view is too narrow. With the rising cost of legal services pricing the middle class out of basic legal services, there’s a new dimension to the justice gap that legal tech can address. You don’t have to be Hello Kitty to worry about IP, and small restaurants that rely on the goodwill generated by their marks arguably need IP protection more than sprawling corporate entities. It’s nice to see those businesses get some affordable help.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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