Taco Bell prevails in case over ‘Taco Tuesday’ trademark, but the fight continues in New Jersey
Cheyenne-based Taco John’s formally abandoning its decades-old claim to own the phrase amid a challenge from its bigger rival.
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Taco Bell rang up a win Tuesday in its quest to make “Taco Tuesday" free of trademark restrictions, with Cheyenne-based Taco John’s formally abandoning its decades-old claim to own the phrase amid a challenge from its bigger rival.
But the dispute looks to keep simmering on the Jersey Shore, where Gregory's Restaurant & Bar in Somers Point promised to keep fighting Taco Bell over the exclusive right to hold “Taco Tuesday” promotions in New Jersey.
“We’re hanging in there. We’re sticking by our guns,” Gregory's Restaurant & Bar attorney Stephen Altamuro told the Associated Press.
While “Taco Tuesday” has become a well-known phrase often used at restaurants and elsewhere, Taco John's has worked hard to defend its more than 40-year-old trademark of the term in 49 states besides New Jersey. The fast food chain sent many cease-and-desist orders over the years to anyone besides Gregory's Restaurant & Bar daring to have a “Taco Tuesday” promotion.
Somers Point diner fighting to keep ‘Taco Tuesday’ trademark as its own
The disputes culminated with Taco Bell filing with U.S. trademark regulators this May to get Taco John’s and Gregory's Restaurant & Bar to abandon their trademarks, saying the term had become too widely used to belong to any one person or business.
Depriving people of free use of “Taco Tuesday” would be like depriving them “of sunshine itself,” Taco Bell attorneys wrote in a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing.
Taco Bell will still have a fight on its hands over “Taco Tuesday” in New Jersey, where the Gregory's Restaurant & Bar attorney said his client laid claim to the trademark even before Taco John's did in the 1970s. Taco John's and Gregory's Restaurant & Bar agreed to divvy up the trademark between New Jersey and the rest of the U.S. in the 1990s, Altamuro said.
The Associated Press wire services contributed to this report.
