Replace logo with a picture of a waffle and name it the Waffle Index?
Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
21–30 of 218 posts
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#22Why take the whole site down instead of just removing their logo?
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#23FYI 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…
> 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"
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, dude copy/pasted the logo with the R and everything. What did he expect to happen?
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 Bloomber…
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!
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#25if the issue was just using the trademark and likeness, why not just remove those issues of contention, and keep the site up and running under a different domain? it wasn't mentioned that they had an issue with the data scraping.
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#26As great as Waffle House is, this is a good reminder that they are a corporation, and so must not be trusted.
Maybe I am a bit jaded by life, but I think Trust is a bit foolish. However I have some notes from my International Relations Realist studies:
>Trust is subordinate to anything that can flip Power dynamics. If things will not change the Status Quo of power, trust can be a held as it has benefits in reducing costs. If a power dynamic can be flipped, trust will be broken.
>Trust being broken has implications. After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Britain refused to negotiate with him. Not even minor issues could be resolved and only naked power decided things. Stalin had this issue after enforcing communist parties over Eastern Europe.
>As an alternative to trust: Verification. Verification mechanisms exist. Weapons inspectors are an example of this. If the weapons inspectors are not allowed somewhere, you should not just Trust blindly. Obviously the cost is higher when you need to spend resources on verification.
It feels weird to say, but I don't need much trust. I ensure interests are aligned and have verification for things that are important.
Blind trust that wasnt earned is absurd. Trust when stakes are high is absurd. I genuinely feel bad for children and young people who are taught to blindly trust, as they will get burned.
/unpopular reality.
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#27FYI 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…
> 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 s…
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.
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#28if the issue was just using the trademark and likeness, why not just remove those issues of contention, and keep the site up and running under a different domain? it wasn't mentioned that they had an issue with the data scraping.
Author here!
After receiving the C&D, the method with which I was getting the data was removed/patched (which I'm now noticing was not mentioned in the blog post...) I did ask them if there was any thing I could to keep it up and never received a response, and rather than playing a cat & mouse game of "now you don't have our branding, but you are scraping are data so here's another C&D" I just took it down :)
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#29Why take the whole site down instead of just removing their logo?
The mere threat of legal action for most Americans means $$$.
As a college student, probably broke as well. This person probably does not have the legal understanding or access to lawyers to guide him through it.
Much easier to take it down rather than deal with potential legal ramifications.
A half decent lawyer or even the "free" lawyer services at most universities probably would have advised just removing the "trademark" elements as you would.
Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
#30FYI 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…
> 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 s…
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.