Burger King enters into trademark dispute with 1200-year-old Gospel text

Burger King enters into trademark dispute with 1200-year-old Gospel text August 14, 2015

trinity
My wife’s picture of Trinity College. Home of the BK

This week my wife almost bought me a tie. She’s visiting Ireland with my kids and her mom and they went to see the Book of Kells which is a beautiful illuminated Latin text of the Gospels. It’s 1200 years old and very cool. I was jealous. On their way out they stopped in the gift shop and found that the whole store seemed to be devoted to me. At least at first blush.

My initials “BK” are the same as the venerable book’s and they have put “BK” on all sorts of merchandise. How cool!

My wife found this amusing and almost got me a tie in my favorite color. I thought the coincidence was great. This week I also found out that another entity has discovered the initials BK are the same as their own: Burger King. Now Burger King is taking legal action to prevent the gift shop from being able to sell these very ties my wife was looking at! According to Irish central:

[Trinity University] had registered the name “Book of Kells” and their new “BK merchandise” as a global trademark some months ago, but the process was held up in America due to the objections made by Burger King.

The restaurant chain had to be convinced that use of the initials “BK” to refer to Ireland’s national treasure would not have any impact on their own trademark and their brand of burgers, fries and milk shakes, nor would it cause confusion for their customers (we can just imagine the despair of hungry tourists in Dublin when they’re met with a manuscript instead of a fast-food counter)

I find this hilarious. It reminds me of other ridiculous trade-mark shenanigans. Thankfully things seem to have been resolved. Now I just have to be careful how I initial things. I haven’t been around quite as long as the Book of Kells .

 


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