PornHub owner MindGeek is threatening a kebab shop in NYC with trademark infringement::If you’ve been listening to the Vergecast you know the standard for trademark infringement is “likelihood of confusion,” and while it’s true the Hub is known for ⚫️🟠, something tells me the folks walking into Doner Haus aren’t confused about what’s on the menu. Full story in Chelsea News, a hyperlocal NYC news site, via Verge pal Alexandra Roberts.
It’s true they have to defend it, but only if there’s actual infringement. Generally trademarks have a scope in which they’re valid. A restaurant and a porn website seem unlikely to ever be within scope, to the point I suspect if the restaurant ever renamed itself to PornHub, it’d be more likely to be considered infringing GrubHub’s trademarks than PornHub’s owners.
Idk the combination of the white text followed by black text within an orange rounded rectangle logo when paired with tag lines like ‘get stuffed’ might lead people to think it’s a subsidiary or something similar.
A place known for it’s sausages and a restaurant may seem like a strange business partnership but stranger things have happened.
Yeah but if you don’t sue, a legitimate infringer in the future might use not enforcing on the trademark there to argue there own case. Trademark law really doesn’t leave trademark holders in a good position. Though I imagine that a lawsuit when those laws were written weren’t nearly as prohibitively expensive.
Again, trademarks generally have a scope in which they’re valid. Pornhub only needs to sue a restaurant if it plans to open a chain of restaurants or otherwise enter the catering industry.