"Awful Awful" - is it trademarked?
NadCixelsyd
Forty(?) years ago, Friendly's, a New England ice cream chain,
advertised their version of a frappe (milk shake) which they called an
Awful Auful for "Awful big, Awful good". They have since changed the
name of the drink to "Fribble". (Anyone know when/why the name
changed?)
Having not heard the term in many years, I noticed that the Newport
(Rhode Island) Creamery has a drink called the Awful Awful. Then,
while reading the other thread on Reno, Nevada, apparently the Nugget
Diner offers an Awful Awful burger.
I would think the term "Awful Awful" would be trademarked?
Mark Brader
> Forty(?) years ago, Friendly's, a New England ice cream chain,
> advertised their version of a frappe (milk shake) which they called an
> Awful Auful for "Awful big, Awful good". They have since changed the
> name of the drink to "Fribble". (Anyone know when/why the name
> changed?)
Perhaps because it was a trademark violation?
> Having not heard the term in many years, I noticed that the Newport
> (Rhode Island) Creamery has a drink called the Awful Awful. Then,
> while reading the other thread on Reno, Nevada, apparently the Nugget
> Diner offers an Awful Awful burger.
>
> I would think the term "Awful Awful" would be trademarked?
Yes, it's a registered trademark of the Newport Creamery for a
"mixed milk drink containing cane sugar, whole milk, defatted milk,
cocoa, artificial color, artifical flavor and gelatine". First used
1939, first used in commerce 1948, registered 1950. More recently,
Newport's logo for the thing -- the "words, letters, and/or numbers
in stylized form" -- has also been registered as a service mark.
But trademark protection doesn't stop people from using the same[1]
name for a different[2] type of product. So it makes sense that
Friendly's would have been in violation of Newport's trademark,
while the Nugget Diner would not.
http://www.uspto.gov is where you look these things up for the US.
Of course it only shows registered trademarks. It does have an
entry for "hamburger sandwiches" for a company in Reno, presumably
the diner's owner, first used 1954 but not registered until 1998,
but the trademark was abandoned in 2000.
At one time Awful Awful was also a registered word mark in the US
for "men's and women's clothing, namely shirts, pants, shorts, ties,
robes, shoes, sweatshirts, socks, scarves, cloth bibs, jackets,
sweaters, and hats". This was first used in 1989, and the database
shows it as abandoned without giving further details.
[1] Actually, trademark production also extends to confusingly similar
names. And whether or not the names are is a "confusingly similar"
is the sort of thing that legal cases are made of. In Canada we used
to have two chains of office-supplies stores called "Office Depot" and
"Business Depot". It was finally determined that this was a trademark
violation and the latter company changed its name. (They were partly
owned by the US chain Staples, so they adopted that name.)
[2] Again, whether or not something is a "different type of product"
is a matter for the legal system. One famous example involved Apple
Computer when they started getting into digital music and Apple
Records objected.
--
Mark Brader "Computers get paid to extract relevant
Toronto information from files; people should not
m...@vex.net have to do such mundane tasks." -- Ian Darwin
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Charles Wm. Dimmick
There was a malt shop in one of the Oranges [Orange? West Orange? East
Orange?] in New Jersey that was advertising an "Awful Awful" milk shake
back in the 1940s. If you could down two of them at one sitting they
gave you a third one free.
Charles
Greg Goss
>[1] Actually, trademark production also extends to confusingly similar
>names. And whether or not the names are is a "confusingly similar"
>is the sort of thing that legal cases are made of.
The father of a friend used to be involved with Cominco Engineering, a
division of Cominco that later merged with Teck. He says that when
they started doing work in Holland, that they had to get permission
from Conoco. Apparently the minerals company was too close a business
to the oil company, and Cominco and Conoco sound too close. But only
to a Dutchman.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
bill van
Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
No, not to a Dutchman. The middle syllable differentiates them as
clearly in Dutch as they do in English. I suspect the story has evolved
in the retelling.
bill
Greg Goss
>> The father of a friend used to be involved with Cominco Engineering, a
>> division of Cominco that later merged with Teck. He says that when
>> they started doing work in Holland, that they had to get permission
>> from Conoco. Apparently the minerals company was too close a business
>> to the oil company, and Cominco and Conoco sound too close. But only
>> to a Dutchman.
>
>No, not to a Dutchman. The middle syllable differentiates them as
>clearly in Dutch as they do in English. I suspect the story has evolved
>in the retelling.
It's probably on the edge of "close enough" in any of a hundred
countries, and just randomly showed up on the other side of the edge
in one (random) one.
Bill Kinkaid
I thought it was pronounced "CON-o-co". As in "it took two full quarts
of 40 weight oil just to get it to the Conoco station".
--
Bill in Vancouver
https://picasaweb.google.com/BillKinkaid
Greg Goss
Where'd you EVER get that TRUCK?
Yeah, the emphasis is different. Co-MIN-co (long o, short i, long o,
emphasis on middle. The two O's swapped pronunciation after
Consolidating Mining Company turned into the short version.
Nasti J
> while reading the other thread on Reno, Nevada, apparently the Nugget
> Diner offers an Awful Awful burger.
For dessert, one may have an "It's It".
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Which somehow fits in with the fact that right now I'm drinking a bottle
of "Hebrew Messiah", "the Chosen Beer", "the beer you've been waiting
for", put out by the Shmaltz Brewing Company.
Charles
Nasti J
> Which somehow fits in with the fact that right now I'm drinking a bottle
> of "Hebrew Messiah", "the Chosen Beer", "the beer you've been waiting
> for", put out by the Shmaltz Brewing Company.
does it taste like schmaltz?
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Not at all. It has the wonderful property of tasting like a "bitter" ale
while it is being consumed without leaving any bitter aftertaste.
One of my four favorite brews, along with Anchor Porter, Ommergang Abbey
Ale, and Old Rasputin Imperial.
Charles