How A US Burger Chain Brought 'Ruby Tuesday' Full Circle Through Trademark Bullying

from the the-circle-is-now-complete dept

Circles are so zen. So jedi. So the force. "The circle is now complete," Darth Vader says in A New Hope. Well, it turns out that the universe has a way of pulling this sort of dynamic out of the realm of the mystical and into the far more mundane realm of trademark bullying. You may be aware of the American burger chain Ruby Tuesday. The chain has locations all over the United States and internationally. Notably, the company's website lists no locations in Australia. This is notable because the American chain has for some reason decided to try to bully an Australian rock band, Ruby Tuesdays, into changing its name over trademark concerns.

Ruby Tuesday the restaurant has served Ruby Tuesdays the band with a letter outlining their intent to sue. It reads: “While many artists pay tribute to other artists through imitation, when it comes to imitating famous trademarks, only Ruby Tuesday is entitled to the goodwill of its mark.”

The letter continues: “In fact, the knowing adoption of a mark intending to play off a well-established mark is among the most egregious of trademark violations, warranting courts to apply the harshest of consequences.”

The corporation has demanded that the group change its name, close down its website, destroy all of its merch and pass on all of its profits as compensation.

So, a number of things should be immediately obvious here. First, these two organizations are not remotely in the same marketplace. Burgers and music acts offer no avenue for public confusion as to what the source of the prodct is. Second, for that and a myriad of other reasons, there is no potential for confusion here. The entire point of trademark law is to keep consumers informed as to the source and affiliations of a product. That is simply not in issue here. All of that is particularly so when you consider that Ruby Tuesday does not have any storefront locations in the entire country in which the band exists. We can just add here for context that this is a penniless hobby band that has very little notoriety, even in Australia.

But back to the concept of this representing a circle. Our younger readers may not realize this, but the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain has an ironic source for its name.

The restaurant's name was derived from The Rolling Stones song, "Ruby Tuesday", which was popular during the time of the first restaurant's inception. The name was suggested to founder Sandy Beall by Bob Hope.

"The circle is now complete." Yes, the restaurant yoinked the title of one of the most popular songs from one of the most popular rock bands ever for its name in the 1960s and then turned around and attempted to bully a little-known rock band out of that same name in the present. I'll give Ruby Tuesday credit here for the pure audacious irony of its tone-deaf attempt at legal asshatery.

Zero credit is awarded, however, for having anything resembling a valid trademark claim.

Filed Under: australia, hamburgers, music, restaurants, ruby tuesday, trademark, us
Companies: ruby tuesday