Wendy’s is one of my favourite fast food chains and today I was surprised to learn that the reason we don’t have it in Belgium is because of a small business in the Netherlands:
[https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/11/little-wendys-in-the-netherlands-wins-another-case-against-big-wendys-usa/](https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/11/little-wendys-in-the-netherlands-wins-another-case-against-big-wendys-usa/)
I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I’m happy that a small business can stand up successfully to the big guys, but on the other, I would like to be able to buy a spicy chicken sandwich.
What’s also bizarre is that this article seems to imply that the Benelux countries have some kind of uniform trademark system. So Benelux is really something beyond a name after after all?
8 comments
I frankly like this, a big middle finger to yet another american fastfood chain.
And it’s not as if they are forbidden from opening in the Benelux, they just can’t do it under that name, because someone else used it first. Trademarks go both ways.
And yes, you could consider the Benelux as an even more advanced version of the EU, it is in part also the inspiration of the EU.
Edit: changed copyright to trademark, as was correctly pointed out.
Yes, there used to be national systems for trademarks but for a while now there’s a uniform “Benelux trademark” instead of a Belgian, Dutch or Luxemburgish one. For legal affairs, there are actually quite a lot of things which are found in Benelux law / the Benelux treaties but the Benelux trademark is definitely the most common one.
It doesn’t stop Wendy’s from opening stores in the EU though. They could either 1) get a license to use the trademark from the small Dutch business, 2) simply get a Wendy’s trademark in every other EU Member State and skip the Benelux, or 3) Open stores under another trademark. I realise option 3 is usually something big chains want to avoid (requires duplication of marketing materials etc., and while manageable in one jurisdiction it becomes problematic when you have to do it in several jurisdictions so they don’t want to open that door) and 1) is not an option due to the gung-ho attitude Wendy’s inc. used which soured the owner of the Dutch chain.
Fuck Wendy’s fuck burger king fuck McDonald’s gtfo with your trash food
Wendy’s is complete shit
Is it still Wendy’s after adhering to our favv regulations?
I would be compassionate, but as far as I know, they are nowhere to be found in Europe, are they? so meh. Do those other countries first, then we’ll talk
Why would you think the Benelux is only a name? It’s probably the most intense cooperation between countries in the world. About this specific case: long live Europe and the fact that these big american companies cannot come here and just fuck up everything because they got money.
This is the kind of nonsense that you get when you grant ownership of the words in someone else’s mouth as a natural right. The point of trademark systems that actually benefit the communities that institute them is to prevent commercial fraud and confusion, and serve consumers by rationalizing marketplaces. It is not to let companies seek rent on the words we use or to let some asshole’s misguided crusade keep consumers from deciding what burgers they want.
It shouldn’t matter what this dude’s intent was when he named his shop after a brand that had been globally recognizable for decades, or how really implausible it is that no one he knew mentioned that he was doing this really notable thing while he was doing it even if he really was so oddly ignorant. Your recognition of the Wendy’s brand as being associated with the restaurants operated by ‘Wendy’s International’ isn’t something that belongs to either ‘Wendy’s International’ or to this fucker, its something that belongs to you. He hasn’t stolen the brand from this American corporation, because of course he did it on purpose, he has stolen it from you. The appropriate role of the State isn’t to decide who gets a natural right to the ownership of a brand, but to adjudicate which ownership best serves the recognition and interests of the consumer.
Its illustrative of a pretty deep divide between Europe and most of the rest of the democratic world about who gets to decide what words mean. Only in Europe, and in states bullied by European trade policy, do words mean what the State demands they they must mean. Its an authoritarian and fundamentally illiberal approach to language that imperialistic European institutions like the Académie Française at least used to more intellectually honest about the purpose of. Fuck the petty anti-Americanism, there are bigger things at work here. Just because you might not want to go to this mediocre fast food place doesn’t mean that you should get to decide for someone else whether they get to. The Wendy’s brand, for almost everyone in Europe who is aware of it means the restaurants operated by Wendy’s International. This fucker doesn’t have a natural right to tell us any different, and the State shouldn’t have the authority to help him enforce that.