[mushufasa]

FYI it is literally required by law that, to maintain a trademark, the company with the trademark must actively enforce it on an ongoing basis. Even if this side-project was benign, Waffle House must send cease-and-desist letters to maintain their trademark generally under US law.

That said, if the author had posted a tracker of Waffle House closures descriptively, without using their marks or branding, that would be fine, in the same way that google maps is fine to list which restaurants are open/closed. The key being that "google maps" is referencing the brand of google, their own trademark, and could not be confused for something authored by any of the restaurants featured on the map. Trademark is designed to avoid anyone being confused with who was the author, it's a "feels like" definition with a rubric, not a specific technical definition.

My suggestion would be to rename a site "disaster indices" and include the waffle index as one index. Even batter (yes) if you add other similar indices, like theme park closures or other.

[ceejayoz]

> FYI it is literally required by law that, to maintain a trademark, the company with the trademark must actively enforce it on an ongoing basis. Even if this side-project was benign, Waffle House must send cease-and-desist letters to maintain their trademark generally under US law.

That's not the only option available. They can, if they find the use of the trademark to be benign (or even beneficial), offer a license to use it for this purpose.

For example, the Linux trademark has an approval and attribution process: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/the-linux-mark

Folks should consider hiring Jack Daniels' law firm. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/jack_daniels_cease-a...

> In order to resolve this matter, because you are both a Louisville ‘neighbor’ and a fan of the brand, we simply request that you change the cover design when the book is re-printed. If you would be willing to change the design sooner than that (including on the digital version), we would be willing to contribute a reasonable amount towards the costs of doing so.

[quietbritishjim]

> My suggestion would be to rename a site "disaster indices" and include the waffle index as one index. Even batter (yes) if you add other similar indices, like theme park closures or other.

Is it really necessary to go that far though? I think they just need to stop using the visual mark and make clear that it's unofficial. (But I am very much not a lawyer.) You are allowed to identify a product or company by name so long as it's clear it's not you and trademark law can't be used to stop you (e.g., for a bad review). Maybe the site could be renamed "disaster index based on Waffle House closures" or simply "unofficial feed of Waffle House closures"

[mushufasa]

Yes you can name a brand name without using their logo.

That's not what the author did here -- he invented a fake logo and chose a domain name and title that include "WaffleHouse." Trademark law is specifically designed to prevent people from creating a fake logo and registering a domain that makes people think it is your own brand. Yes, there is some exception for parodies and criticism, but writing a review / parody sketch is a completely different format than a website that lists information that purports to be official open/closures of your business.

You can't create a product that contains the brand name of another product; I can't invent "Magic Kleenex" or "Better Google," so he similarly can't name something a "Waffle House Index." What he could do is name something "disaster index" or "breakfast restaurant index" where the data happens to be from the waffle house locations.

[potato3732842]

I think the degree to which the waffle house index is popularized among demographics who make a lot of noise and don't do a lot of spending money at waffle house (an analysis that a BigCo marketing team is more than capable of performing) had something to do with their decision to levy a blank "stop this" rather than something more collaborative.

[cactacea]

Yeah, dude copy/pasted the logo with the R and everything. What did he expect to happen?

[mushufasa]

the blog post made it clear he is a teenager. I don't think he thought about any of this. Hopefully he reads this thread, learns a bit more about trademarks, and tries again in a proper way.

If it's really true that there's no true Waffle House index, that would have some value for the world. Though I also suspect that there is something that exists for that (maybe part of a paid data subscription, e.g. from Bloomberg or something), since it isn't clear that the author did rigorous research for this fun side project.

[lafond]

Author here - I absolutely do have more to learn about trademarks and appreciate everyones comments :) I was attempting to go for a good faith representation but (obviously) now know that wasn't the best way to go about it.

As far as rigorous research, I looked semi-heavily and couldn't find anything in relation to it. I'm sure it's not a foreign concept to use local area data in this way for disaster planning though!

[DoctorOW]

Couldn't they just draft up a license to give them permission to use it?

[dylan604]

It's much cheaper/easier to send the C&D. Licensing would mean a department to handle the licensing. They'd have to accept request for new licenses. They'd have to maintain the service being licensed. They'd have check for compliance with licensing terms. So the legal team rightly said, fuck that, here's a C&D.