0:00

It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence.

0:02

And Wells Adams, an iHeartRadio

0:04

podcast. That is

0:06

right, it's time for another episode of Two Dudes

0:08

in a Kitchen. It's Wells Adams hanging out with

0:11

you alongside the very

0:13

talented and dashingly handsome

0:15

Tyler Florence. How are

0:17

you, Bud.

0:18

Well, I'm great, man. You're not so

0:20

bad yourself. Thank you, Adams.

0:22

How you doing, Buddy, You're good. I'm doing

0:24

great.

0:25

You know, we record these in advance,

0:29

so you know, by the time this airs,

0:32

a couple of weeks will have gone by. But this is one

0:34

of the biggest weeks of my life because

0:37

I am a golf fan and this is Master's

0:40

Week, which is a very

0:43

important golf tournament to me and

0:45

my family. And it's funny

0:48

because you know,

0:51

you have brought me into this culinary world

0:53

visa vis this podcast, and through

0:57

Worst Cooks, introduced

1:00

me to some amazing chefs. And

1:02

I think that, I

1:04

mean, aside from you, the most amazing

1:07

person in the culinary world that I've

1:09

met because of you is

1:12

Jose Andreas.

1:14

Yes, we had dinner with him in Austin

1:16

two years ago.

1:17

We did we you know, like you know

1:19

who he is, and I was like, I have no idea, and he's

1:21

like, oh my god, he is like one of the best chefs

1:23

in the world. But he also does all

1:25

this work with a world

1:28

central cutching Yeah, where basically they just go

1:31

and make food for any

1:33

place that like really needs help, and like he's

1:35

really actually changing the world. And

1:37

the reason why I bring him up during this

1:40

the Masters week is because

1:42

a fellow Spaniard of his won the Masters

1:45

last year, a guy named John

1:48

Rahm. And when you win the Masters

1:50

the next year, you have to curate the dinner

1:52

for the Champions Dinner,

1:54

which happens the Wednesday before

1:57

the tournament or the Tuesday for the tournament. And Jose

1:59

Andreas is the one who curated the

2:01

menu for the Masters. So before

2:03

we get into this episode long diet Tribe

2:05

and prelude in if you were to

2:07

win the Masters, Chef

2:10

Tyler Florence, what would be

2:12

on your Master's Champions Dinner

2:14

menu?

2:16

Well, and I'm not bragging,

2:19

right, you you know, you

2:21

get a chance to you know, being

2:24

being famous and all that, right, kind of lived the

2:26

good life. From time and time you get very interesting

2:29

invitations to go do stuff. It feels kind

2:31

of super rare. I played Augusta National

2:33

and this hurts.

2:34

We talked before, we talked about this and

2:37

you shot like two hundred and eight

2:39

and ye lost.

2:40

I lost ten balls. But

2:42

I had a very very dashing, full,

2:45

very expensive golf outfit on. I

2:47

can't remember who who was by, but I went the Barney's

2:49

and I'm like, I want the best looking golf thing, right, Yeah,

2:52

But Augusta, Nashal is very special, right, it

2:54

is. My people are from Augusta.

2:56

My dad's family grew up outside

2:59

of a small town called Lincolnton,

3:01

Georgia, which is just outside of Augusta. And

3:05

uh, the Augusta National and

3:07

the Master's tournament is a the biggest

3:09

thing that happens there. It's also it's just the biggest golf tournament

3:11

in America. And it's just special. It's

3:14

very very very special special place. Right. So

3:17

the the golf course is closed most

3:19

of the year, right, it's

3:21

only open for a little while, right, And

3:23

uh, when I was there, I can't remember. It was like Conda

3:26

Lisa Rice was there when when I was And

3:28

I mean it's just like the world's you know, most

3:30

influential people. But it's the

3:32

South, right, So

3:35

if you're asking me what I

3:37

would do, I would have this because there's

3:39

a high low thing. Right, go to Augusta

3:41

National. It's kind of one of those things you can't you

3:43

can you can buy a ticket to go watch, but you can't buy

3:45

a ticket to participate. Right.

3:47

You get you get selected, you know what I mean. You

3:50

and you actually can't get buy a ticket to go watch.

3:52

You have to you have to put yourself in the

3:55

lottery.

3:55

The lottery. Yeah, so it's

3:57

super rare, but it's

4:00

the d of the day. It's still the South. One of the famous things

4:02

they're really famous for there is their pimento

4:04

cheese sandwich, which is not the

4:06

greatest pimenta cheese sandwich if I could

4:08

not particularly honest with you. It's a little

4:10

basic.

4:11

But it's priced correctly when you go there,

4:14

the pimena cheese sandwich. They do not price gouge

4:16

there. It's two dollars.

4:17

I thought it was a buck fiftieth two dollars. Maybe it's

4:20

my thing. Yeah, yeah, so

4:22

I would a I'm live

4:25

streaming this idea, I'd update that recipe. So I think

4:27

it's a little boring, a little more mayonnaise. I

4:29

think a lot more flavor than the roast of peppers, right,

4:32

a little more, it's a little more cayenne, just kinda

4:34

give a little more zing, maybe

4:37

slightly better cheese. I'd make it a

4:39

churched up five dollars sandwich, Okay,

4:42

yeah, because I think people would pay for it. Yeah, yeah,

4:45

that's what I would do, all right. When it comes

4:47

to dinner, right, I think I would start

4:49

smoking some whole hog Georgia too,

4:52

yep. And I think I would make it about barbecue.

4:54

And I think it would be really really special because

4:56

I think when people that are coming from all over the world to

4:59

u joy the masters, I

5:01

think walking out with a taste

5:04

of the South would be important.

5:06

You gotta have sweet tea, you gotta have space

5:09

barbecue sauce, you gotta have a good coal slaw, you

5:11

gotta have beans, you got a potato salad. And

5:13

I think you gotta have just succulent, slow

5:16

cooked whole hog pork boom.

5:18

That's what I would do.

5:19

That was Jordan Speith's choice

5:21

for his Culinary Champions Dinner.

5:24

Are you going? Are you going this year? Well?

5:26

I went last year and last year I would

5:28

love to go again, but like I get it, it's

5:30

it's a once in a lifetime thing. I did it, I would

5:32

like to play it. So if you ever had that connect again, you

5:35

tell your boy.

5:36

Okay, okay, okay.

5:38

I do want to shift gears a little bit because this

5:40

is something that I've been seeing a whole lot in my social

5:42

media feed on TikTok

5:45

and on Instagram.

5:46

You know, TikTok is kind of this.

5:48

New place for like people to really

5:50

kind of air their grievances about things that they

5:52

don't feels it's right. And I've

5:54

been seeing a lot of people be very

5:57

upset at a

5:59

colleague of yours in David Chang,

6:01

who makes this this you

6:04

know, spicy chili sauce called Chili

6:06

Crunch, and he's been drawing a lot of

6:08

heat over sending

6:10

cease and desist letters to companies

6:13

about you know,

6:15

I guess officially saying that they're going to try

6:17

to sue them for kind of doing something

6:19

similar. And a lot of people on

6:22

social media are saying, hey, David Chang, you're

6:24

kind of beaten up on the little guy. So in

6:26

our kind of text thread before

6:28

we did the episode, I just said, Tyler,

6:31

what's your thoughts. I'm sure you've worked with this guy before

6:33

and Food Network and all that kind of stuff, and

6:35

I wouldn't want to know what you thought of this whole

6:38

kind of big story it's happening.

6:40

Well, I listen. It's it's really interesting,

6:42

right because I am both a small

6:44

business owner, I'm also a medium

6:46

business owner. I hold a

6:49

lot of trademarks. We when

6:52

we come up with a concept,

6:54

trademarking the name

6:57

and that the intellectual problem

7:00

pretty what they call IP and electrical property is

7:03

arguably more important than

7:05

the name itself, because

7:07

you know, everything is kind

7:09

of been invented, but your particular

7:12

slant on it is the

7:14

difference between you having the right

7:16

to use it or someone encroaching

7:19

on your space that you were clever

7:22

enough to figure out first that

7:24

they can kind of come and start stealing your market share. Right,

7:26

Yeah, so I'm a little torn. Right,

7:29

So there's one thing that can feel like okay,

7:31

so chili crunch, chili crisp, and

7:33

you guys know what we're talking about, right, It's that kind

7:35

of like yummy chili oil. And

7:38

there's there's so many

7:40

different variations of this particular recipe

7:42

but it's dried chili's sash,

7:45

one peppercorn, a

7:47

garlic onion, and both those

7:49

are dehydrated and then

7:53

they're fried. And then so

7:55

this kind of perfume, kind of wonderful flavor

7:57

profile is both this kind

7:59

of like yum me fat thing that's great on pizza, great

8:01

on scrambled eggs, but I also gives you this kind

8:03

of wonderful texture because it's crunchy. It's chili

8:06

crisp or chili crunch. Right. This

8:08

has been around for one hundreds of years, and

8:10

I think this is where the tear comes from. It's

8:13

because how can you trade.

8:16

You can't trademark mayonnaise. You

8:18

can't trademark ketchup. You can't trademark

8:21

mustard now, but you can trademark

8:23

miracle whip, right, because that's

8:26

not and it's neither one, right, And or there's

8:28

a company called just that

8:30

trademark in eggless vegan mayonnaise,

8:33

right, but then they got sued because

8:36

they called it mayonnaise and it's not maynaise because it's got

8:38

no eggs in it, right, So it's kind

8:40

of interesting. So anyway, so because

8:42

I'm so deep in this because literally,

8:45

you know, as a guy who's you know, I have

8:48

I don't know, four or five different companies in a manage right

8:50

now. All of them I started from scratch,

8:52

and all of them I trademarked, right So,

8:55

who I want to pipe in on this? Because I did, you and I

8:57

could just talk about what we read. I want to get

9:00

like a real professional involved in this. So I

9:02

asked my trademark attorney

9:04

from New York City, Sebastian

9:07

Levera Risso, who is a partner

9:09

at Lattis

9:12

and Parry out of New York City, to

9:15

come on and kind of give us some insight on

9:18

what it means. I was asking three simple

9:20

questions, What is a trademark? How

9:24

do you get a trademark? And I think the most

9:26

important thing is how do you defend

9:28

a trademark? And I think that's where

9:31

David Ching is at right now, and I see his

9:33

side of it. So, if he has a trademark

9:35

on Chili Crisp, the question

9:37

is does he have a trademark on the name or

9:40

the recipe? You can't

9:42

trademark a recipe, yeah, he

9:44

can't trademarker recipe. Now if

9:47

he just has a name on chili crypts so what you could call

9:49

it a thousand different things. Just come up with a synonym

9:51

for crispy, right, and you can call it something

9:53

else. But I want to get I want to get Sebastian

9:55

on. You're gonna like him because I think you're gonna pick his brain because

9:57

you and I think the same way when it comes to business.

10:00

But I want to get Sebastian on the

10:02

podcast right now so we can just ask him some good

10:05

tough questions because this is a guy I go to for

10:07

information.

10:08

All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back,

10:10

we're going to have Tyler's lawyer on

10:12

the show. I hope he's not charging

10:14

us by the minute. Stick around and listening to two dudes in

10:16

the kitchen, all

10:21

right, welcome back to two dudes in a kitchen. It's now three

10:23

dudes in a kitchen. We're kind of doing something a little

10:25

bit different on the heels

10:28

of this David Chang trademark

10:31

issue that's going all over social

10:33

media. We thought we would start

10:36

by bringing in someone

10:38

who actually knows what the hell they're talking about. Tyler

10:41

Florence has his trademark lawyer

10:44

in the building right now. Sebastian,

10:46

how are you my friend.

10:47

Hey, how are you guys? Thanks for having me

10:49

here with you today.

10:51

I hope that you're charging Tyler

10:54

by the hour here for this.

10:55

Oh absolutely not. I charged him things,

10:58

so don't.

11:01

But listen to you. It's worth every penny

11:03

because I think the intellectual copyright,

11:07

the intellectual property that you create is

11:10

the real value on all this. And you

11:12

and I talk about this all the time, Like

11:14

I don't. I can't remember exactly how many trademarks

11:17

that we you and I have because we have a bunch. But

11:20

this is part of being in business. If you create a

11:22

concept, you got to lock down all

11:24

the URLs, right, you

11:27

got to lock down all the social media

11:29

handles, and you have to file for a trademark

11:31

for what it is, or anybody

11:34

can just take your thing, right especially that's

11:36

correct.

11:36

Yeah, and you you should, you know, like

11:38

you shouldn't go further than that. You know, you should

11:40

always plan in advance and probably

11:43

you know, think big. I mean, are you just selling

11:45

your products in the US now, but are you thinking

11:47

about setting those products in

11:50

Europe in the future, Because you should

11:52

understand that trademarks are territorial in nature.

11:55

So the fact that you may have a

11:57

trademark registration in the US. Doesn't

11:59

it sally mean that you will

12:01

have protection for the same trademark

12:04

in China and Europe, or in

12:06

Mexico or in Canada, And

12:09

everything goes hand in hand, you know, like you

12:11

mentioned, you're oh, of course you have to secure

12:14

that domain name so you can have a website

12:16

that is reflecting your

12:18

services where you can sell your products,

12:20

and then social media, you know, and

12:24

most importantly you go and file your TRAMER

12:26

application with the National Tramer Office,

12:29

being that the United States, Canada,

12:32

you know, wherever you plan to sell

12:34

your your products or offer services

12:37

in the near future.

12:40

So going through this real fast, and you and I got a chance

12:42

to speak yesterday. So David

12:44

Chang is an interesting position.

12:48

And I don't know if I necessarily what

12:51

would want to be in this position, because like it's a

12:54

three hundred plus year old recipe for chili

12:56

grass, right, the documentation of

12:58

this particular recipe goes back

13:00

so far, and then there's

13:03

variegations regionally all

13:05

throughout Southeast Asia for chili's

13:07

and garlic. They also use this in Mexico

13:11

christ recipe in Mexico. So the

13:14

fact that so the question Sebastian.

13:16

Does he have a trademark on the recipe

13:19

or does he have a trademark on the name Chili

13:21

crisp slash chili crunch or whatever he's called it.

13:24

Yeah, Well, as as matters stand

13:26

today, and I was looking, I was doing

13:28

some research in advance, he does

13:31

own a trademark registration for

13:34

chili Crunch, you know, and

13:36

he has recently filed I will

13:38

assume that in the way of this dispute

13:41

a trainmark application for chili Crunch.

13:44

So you may want to ask what is exactly

13:46

a tramark application or what exactly

13:48

is a trademark registration. A trademark

13:51

registration is, you know, like the title

13:54

that the US government grants

13:56

you and essentially tells you

13:58

you own that brand. You

14:01

own that name for those particular

14:03

products you know, in his case, condiments and

14:05

so forth, and you, as

14:07

the owner of that brand, have the

14:09

ability to exclude others

14:12

from using the same or

14:14

a confusingly similar term

14:16

for the same goods or

14:18

even similar goods or related goods.

14:21

So when you look at the records of

14:23

the US government, the US Trademark

14:25

Office, you can tell that he owns

14:27

the trademark registration for chili

14:30

crunch. Now would that

14:32

trademark registration with then,

14:35

you know, an attack based

14:37

on on the mark being generic

14:39

the way that you describe

14:42

the recipe for a hundreds of years.

14:45

That's something to be seen. I'm quite curious

14:48

to see how how this dispute

14:50

uh evolves and whether the party's

14:53

uh you know, resource to litigation or

14:56

somehow uh sell all these

14:58

promptly uh be for this

15:00

goes to court.

15:02

Okay, let's talk about let's talk about

15:04

defending a trademark. And I want to talk about

15:06

it from both sides of it, because I definitely see both

15:08

sides of it. But okay, so let's

15:10

just say you are Sebastian.

15:13

You are representing a

15:15

small independent condiment

15:18

producer that makes a chili crisp,

15:20

and then you just received a seasoned assist letter

15:22

from Mamafuku and David Chang and

15:24

it probably feels a little scary because he's got some scratch

15:27

he can come after you. Right, what do

15:30

you do? Do you do you literally

15:32

cease production or do you think there's some

15:35

leverage to go to fight

15:37

that seasoned assist letter?

15:39

Well, you know the typical answer. It will

15:41

depend on a case by case basis right,

15:44

but you will definitely would take this seriously.

15:46

You know, like receiving a season this is letter is

15:48

no joke. You know, you have to

15:50

to understand that there's liability

15:53

attached to it. So you have to probably

15:55

if you get a season this is letter, get

15:58

a trademark attorney to look into it,

16:00

and you know that person

16:02

will be in a position to stalue the

16:04

facts, review the records of the US

16:07

government, you know, the US Trade our office,

16:09

and we'll be able to guide you.

16:11

You know, like this particular case,

16:14

it's it's a tough one. You know, it's

16:16

a it's

16:19

a grey area where you

16:21

know you can tell. Yeah, but it's been there

16:23

that everybody has been referring to that uh

16:26

you know, to that ingredient as chili

16:28

crunch for one hundreds of years and

16:30

yet he's the first one to register

16:33

it or.

16:34

Kind of is what it is that? I mean, it is what it is,

16:36

right, I mean if he was the first person to go, huh,

16:39

no one's ever circled the wagons on that

16:42

particular concept of that recipe and

16:44

it's starting to trend up. I'm gonna

16:46

own it.

16:47

Yeah, it's that a.

16:48

File of trademark for Chili

16:50

Crisp and Chili Crunch, and I'm

16:52

gonna be the first person to do it exactly.

16:55

And interestingly, in

16:57

reviewing the records, you know that trademark

17:00

registration for Chili Crunch wasn't

17:02

actually his to begin with. Uh,

17:05

you know, I haven't reviewed the records the

17:07

records in detail, but it

17:10

was owned by a different company that I

17:12

would presume at some point they got

17:14

into a dispute and they ended

17:16

up settling the dispute by one

17:19

party acquiring the rights to the

17:21

other, you know, And that's how he got those

17:24

rights in Chili Crunch. And

17:26

as I said, you know before, he recently

17:28

just recently filed for Chili Crunch.

17:31

Now, yeah, you know, the moment that you have a trademark

17:33

registration granted by the

17:36

US Patent and Trademark Office, that's

17:38

a very solid piece of evidence

17:41

that you are the exclusive owner of

17:43

the of the of the brand and

17:45

that you are entitled to exclude

17:47

others from using the same term for

17:50

the same goods. And this is the

17:52

position where he is at at this point

17:54

in time. He owned the trademark and

17:57

until unless someone goes ahead

17:59

and challenge that trademark registration

18:02

by filing a petition to cancel that

18:05

will remain active, and he

18:07

will have all the rights to go and police

18:09

and empties. He's intellectual

18:12

property.

18:13

Okay, so you're David Chang. Now we're on David Chang's

18:15

side of the table.

18:16

Right.

18:17

So you've got you know, probably

18:19

you know, U ten plus million

18:21

dollars invested in the scale

18:24

up of Mamafuku Chili Crunch, and

18:27

you've got distribution in you

18:29

know, most major grocery stores across to America,

18:32

and you're doing fifty million in top line sales,

18:34

and you're starting to notice that there's

18:37

a bunch of copycats

18:39

that are starting to come on the market, and you're

18:41

like, yo, we did the right thing,

18:43

right. You can't hate the player. You got to hate the game.

18:46

We did the right thing by filing

18:48

a trademark application for Chili Crunch, last Chili

18:51

Crisp, whatever it is, right, and then and

18:53

you didn't so do

18:55

something else or we'll

18:58

see in court. Is

19:00

that something that you would go, would you do or

19:02

you recommend or would you recommend? Trying

19:04

to figure out how to settle with some of these people before you feel

19:06

like you bankrupt them, because that's the that's

19:08

that's the other side of it, right that I think that

19:10

that's like, you know, David Chang has always been like

19:13

a chef of the people, and now he's

19:15

kind of being like the bully of the especially

19:17

with some of these other smaller companies. But you're

19:19

on David Chang's side of the table for this decision,

19:22

what do you do?

19:23

Well, it's even beyond

19:25

him because legally, you

19:28

have a duty to police and imform

19:30

your trademarks. So what happened

19:32

if what happened if

19:34

if you were to own that trademark and just just

19:36

sit there and let everybody use

19:39

your trademark, eventually you

19:41

will lose your trademark rights because.

19:43

You'll lose the trademark. Yeah, you'll

19:45

lose the trademark right exactactly.

19:47

So he's actually he has the duty

19:49

to police and enforce it. Otherwise

19:51

anybody will come and say, hey, uh

19:53

do a trademark office, Say there's

19:55

this trademark registration. There's a colon

19:58

term. Everybody is using it. Know,

20:00

there's a trademark registration for it owned

20:02

by this party, but they're not doing anything

20:05

to protect it, anything to enforce it. So

20:08

why, you know, why, what

20:10

what's the reason for for having that

20:12

trademark registered with the USPTO, let's

20:15

cancel it. And you know, so he's

20:18

forced to take action, you know in a way.

20:20

Now, how how

20:23

aggressive you want to be? That's something that

20:25

you have to put, you know, uh

20:27

imbalance and decide whether

20:29

you want to be kind of

20:31

like a you know, very aggressive

20:34

or you want to be more moderate

20:37

and kindly requests people

20:39

to see and de ciast from using the trademarks

20:41

because he actually owns it. And

20:44

that you know that that issue of

20:46

how aggressive you want to enforce

20:49

your enforce your trademark rights have

20:52

come up a lot lately because

20:54

of social media, and you

20:57

know how small companies now

21:00

exactly this case, you know, our receiving seasons.

21:02

This is letter from from the big players,

21:05

and so instead of hiring an attorney,

21:07

the first thing they do is they go to social

21:09

media and you know, take

21:12

a photo of the season. This is letter, a very

21:14

aggressive one posted there, and

21:17

you know they start saying, look these guys

21:19

you know, trying to to

21:21

to you know, aggressively

21:23

enforced rights to a name he

21:25

doesn't have any rights to and

21:27

so forth and me create

21:29

a big, a huge backlash

21:32

for this.

21:32

This is my this is my grandmother's recipe, right

21:34

Like, how there you don't can't own my grandmother's

21:37

recipe? Wells,

21:41

how do you feel about this? Because you sent me a text about it

21:43

and I think this is a fabulous

21:46

conversation. What's that? Are you one?

21:48

Well, listen, it's super interesting And I

21:50

come from the world of like it's

21:53

really important how you're perceived in the marketplace,

21:56

right Like, you know, I'm

21:58

on a reality TV show and now always want to be like

22:00

looked at as a nice, loved person,

22:03

and this is a way for you to become

22:06

the villain.

22:07

I suppose.

22:08

What's interesting to me is I've done a little bit

22:10

of research on it. Is

22:12

this whole kind of caveat of a

22:14

trademark being quote unquote merely descriptive.

22:18

And that's what a lot of people are saying that

22:20

this trademark is that you can't trademark

22:22

something that's merely descriptive. And

22:25

one, you know, there

22:28

is some precedent with this as

22:31

well. So fly by Jing, which is a company that I've

22:33

used before, They make a

22:35

similar chili old called Seshuan Chili

22:37

Crisp, not chili Crunch, and

22:39

they applied for a trademark back in twenty nineteen,

22:42

which the US Patent Office

22:45

denied. And I don't see the difference

22:47

between Sessuan Chili Crisp and

22:50

chili crunch. They are both the

22:52

same thing. It's chili, and then

22:54

it's describing what it is, which

22:56

is either crispy or crunchy. So

22:58

now I think you're in the weed of like, wait, hold

23:00

on, why did you get a trademark for this? But

23:03

they didn't get a trademark for that. And

23:05

then and I know, Sebastian, you are not a pr

23:08

lawyer, but I imagine that you studied

23:10

it when you had to take the bar and all that kind of stuff. Do

23:13

you think just in terms of being a lawyer

23:16

that this is this is

23:18

worth the headache? Like this

23:21

is going to now Sully his reputation

23:24

as this man of the people cook.

23:26

And I'm not sure if it's worth it just in terms

23:28

of being able to hold the trademarks.

23:31

But if that's your driver, okay, so you have a fiduciary

23:34

obligation to not only yourself as this founder

23:36

of the company, but to your investors, right,

23:38

and if your Chili Crisp is your number

23:40

one driver and a you

23:42

know, one hundred million dollars grocery brand,

23:45

and he's diversified, he has soy sauces

23:47

and he has met But what if this kills his stales?

23:51

But what if the encroaching, the

23:53

encroaching competition that

23:56

he clearly has the right to not

23:58

have to compete with, start to encroach

24:00

your sales. It's like, you do you do you wanna?

24:03

Do you want to blieve from a thousand cots? Yeah?

24:06

I don't know, But I want to go back to the quote

24:08

unquote merely descriptive part, because I think that's

24:10

the most interesting to you. What is the distinction

24:12

between sessue and chili crisp and chili

24:15

crunch to you, Sebastian, because

24:17

it to me it seems like the same thing.

24:19

Well, actually, you know, what you're saying is

24:21

quite right. You know, like in reviewing the records,

24:24

you can say you can see that there was an application

24:26

that was refused as being merely

24:28

descriptive. Well, in essence,

24:30

what it means is that they say, okay, listen,

24:33

uh for chili. That's

24:35

like generic chili is an ingredient

24:38

and no one can own that.

24:40

It has to be free for people

24:42

to refer to it. If I want to say, sell

24:44

a burger, and someone gets a registration

24:47

for burger, then why am I going

24:49

to to to to use to

24:51

refer to the burger. There's no other way, right,

24:54

So that's what happens with merely descriptive.

24:57

Now, for

24:59

for for this trainmark

25:01

registration and for the one that was refused

25:03

before, there's

25:06

a disclaimer of the term chili,

25:08

meaning that the owner of

25:10

the trademark in this case,

25:12

David Chang, they when you

25:15

know, in the process of attaining

25:17

that trademark registration, they

25:19

agreed that they will

25:21

not claim exclusive

25:23

rights over the term chili right now.

25:27

They were able to overcome that,

25:30

and because they also found a merely descriptiveness

25:32

refusal, the difference was

25:34

that probably one

25:37

they had a better attorney and

25:39

two uh, they've resorted

25:42

some technicalities, you know, And that's

25:44

why it's important to have someone that knows the

25:46

in and outs of the of the of the field.

25:48

You know, you could overcome

25:51

a merely uh descriptiveness

25:53

refusal if you have

25:56

used the trademark in commerce,

25:58

right or more than five years. So

26:01

at the time the

26:04

Chili Crunch received this like

26:08

merely descriptive refusal, he

26:10

had been using the trademark for for

26:13

over ten years, so it was relatively

26:15

easy for them to say,

26:18

Okay, that's fine. It's not

26:20

the most original trademark, but

26:23

I have used this for more than five years

26:25

and I have put a lot of money into

26:28

it, and now no one has

26:30

contested my rights. Now I am

26:32

entitled to get this trainer registraction.

26:34

And that's what happened. Now

26:37

with the other case, they didn't do

26:39

it. Yeah, they did receive

26:41

the same essentially the same merely

26:43

descriptive refusal, but

26:45

instead of challenging it, they

26:48

just let it go. So the application was

26:50

ultimately abandoned. So

26:53

that's the difference. You know, one someone

26:55

that knew what they were doing, and probably

26:57

the other one they didn't know that much.

27:00

This is what I would do. I would I would

27:02

I would fight the trademark. If I were David Shang, I'd

27:04

fight the trademark because this is what it means

27:06

to be in business. Right. It's not always pretty,

27:09

but you have investors you got to

27:11

protect, and you have a product you got to protect.

27:13

And then he just did the good hard work

27:16

for protecting his concepts, right, and

27:18

then I would give the recipe away for free. So

27:20

if you want to make this at home, let me show

27:22

you how to make it right, so then nobody can say,

27:25

well, he has a lock on it, because

27:27

if you give that recipe to ten different people, ten

27:30

different people are going to make ten different things. But you

27:32

can always get the products at

27:34

your local whole foods or whatever it is, or

27:36

get it online. That's what I would do. I'd

27:39

give the recipe away and then I would I would

27:41

lock out everybody else owning that term.

27:43

There needs to be you know, like a we

27:46

need to make like a distinction. You know, he's

27:48

just claiming rights to the name, you know, to

27:50

the brand because probably someone

27:52

else is using ChIL critics or

27:54

whatever. He's not claiming proprietary

27:58

rights over the recipe or at least,

28:00

you know, not the millennium. You

28:02

know, the recipe that's been there for for a thousand

28:05

years or one hundred years in China, so

28:07

he just you know, the issue here

28:09

is now about like you cannot make this

28:11

recipe, But the

28:14

issue is you cannot use this trademark yeacause

28:17

that trademark is similar to mine or identical

28:19

to mine. And that's where you are stepping into

28:21

my into my territory.

28:24

You can have the recipe, but you can have the name exactly.

28:27

Well, it's gonna be fascinating to see what happens with

28:30

with David going forward, what he

28:32

decides to do, just in terms of like, yeah, you're

28:34

right, his board members, his investors, and

28:36

then also his fans and

28:38

his public opinion, because I think those are those are also very

28:42

kind of important things when it comes to business

28:44

and selling stuff. Regardless, it's been

28:46

a fascinating conversation. Sebastian,

28:48

thank you so much for coming on to dudes in the kitchen and

28:50

he's shedding some light into into

28:53

the the world of trademarks.

28:56

We appreciate you, and please send all billing

28:58

to Tyler Florence in Corporated.

29:02

He's got he's got my address. Yeah, he

29:05

knows where to send the bill.

29:07

Thank you, guys, pleas sure.

29:08

You're the best, dude, Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

29:10

Thank you guys all the best.

29:12

See as a Bashan.

29:13

Thanks Mane.

29:13

Well, very interesting conversation. It's gonna be

29:15

interesting to see what happens with David going forward.

29:18

You know, it's it's a sticky thing, like you just don't

29:20

want bad press as anyone who's in entertainment,

29:22

and but I totally get it. You also want

29:25

to make money, and especially if you've dumped a bunch of your

29:27

own money or other people's money into it, you have

29:29

to protect your you know, your.

29:31

It is what it is, man, it is what it is, right, and sometimes

29:33

it's not pretty. And we've had to send

29:35

out these season assist letters and we've also

29:38

compromised with people before too. A quick little

29:40

story before we bounce

29:42

out of this one is Miller and Locks,

29:44

right, So Miller in Locks

29:47

was in in Sebastian fora the trademark application

29:49

for those things. I own the trademark for that, right,

29:52

yeah, and so that that was a cattle

29:54

company h from the

29:56

eighteen sixties, but

29:59

they have but the trademark was abandoned in nineteen

30:01

twenty five. I happened to stumble

30:03

across this fabulous story that

30:06

where the Chase Center where Miller and Lux sits

30:09

right now used to be the home headquarters

30:11

of millern Lux. So it's just sort of serendipitous

30:14

that we found this, and it happened to be in

30:16

the same location where we technically built

30:19

a great steakhouse. So

30:21

I just refouled the trademark application and now

30:23

get to tell their story. There's

30:25

another company called Miller and Lux Wines

30:28

because the name Miller and Luck is actually quite famous.

30:31

They're selling wine out of like Central Valley someplace.

30:34

And I told him they could do it because they've been doing it

30:36

for ten years. Although I have the trademark for

30:38

Miller and Lux Wine. Yeah,

30:40

I let him do it so because

30:42

I didn't want to, like, you know, cause me coming

30:44

out of nowhere, and your point was,

30:47

it's all about the public perception of what you do.

30:49

Right. So I'm selling Miller

30:51

and Lux wine and so are they, and I'm

30:54

not in They can't challenge mine, and I'm not going to

30:56

challenge theirs. If somebody else jumps in

30:58

the marketplace is a whole different thing. But

31:00

I felt like, I think there's give and take and all this kind

31:02

of stuff. But I think you do have to protect your

31:04

creativity. You're a pe too, Yeah, you

31:06

gotta check you you have to protect your intellectual

31:09

problem. Yeah. Well it's an interesting conversation.

31:11

If you guys have some thoughts, please hit us up on

31:13

Instagram at two Dudes in the Kitchen, Send a

31:15

DM or I'm sure, we'll have a clip

31:18

of this that you can comment on. And

31:20

I doubt this is gonna the last time we talk

31:22

about it. We're out of here, but

31:24

when we come back in just a couple of days,

31:26

we're going to be talking all about restaurant

31:29

etiquettes and we'll be talking to Sarah

31:31

Jane Hoe, who has a new book

31:33

out called Mind Your Manners, and also she's on

31:36

Netflix as well. It's gonna be a very interesting

31:38

conversation, so you better mind

31:40

your p's and cues. We'll see you next time

31:42

on Two Dudes in a Kitchen. All right, guys, thanks

31:44

for listening. Follow us on Instagram at two

31:46

Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to write us a review

31:48

and leave us five stars.

31:51

We'll take that and we'll see you guys next

31:53

time.

31:53

See you next time.