Subway - Trademark Infringement

Subway, which is a sandwich company that has 31,879 restaurants in 91 nations, is currently suing a restaurant in Las Vegas over trademark infringement. A trademark is a word, symbol, or phrase, used to identify a particular manufacturer or seller's products and distinguish them from the products of another. The restaurant is calling themselves "Subway Avenue" and Subway thinks that this is too close to their name. Not only is the name closely related but on the Subway Avenue website the menu looks like the one from Subway. Subway claimed that "Defendant's use of plaintiff's mark within the name of its restaurant and related services will likely cause confusion or mistake, or will likely deceive the public as to defendant's food products and restaurant as being associated or identified with or being the same as those of plaintiff". The Subway Avenue owner, Gevork Boyadzhyan, didn't want to change the name at first, but eventually gave into Subway's demands. He changed the name of his restaurant to "Sub Avenue". Not only was Subway concerned about the name of the restaurant, but they also put a charge against Subway Avenue's website saying it had a similar domain name. This charge is still pending.



I believe Subway is doing the right thing on these issues with trademarks. Subway recently sued Quiznos over creating an ad contest comparing Subway and Quiznos. These ads negatively portray Subway and Quiznos misused Subway's trademark logo in the ad. Subway shouldn't allow companies to use parts of their name that could mislead people into believing their business was a part of Subway. The ad contest misused Subway's name and used it in a negative way. Although the Subway Avenue restaurant sold different items like breakfast, fish and burgers, people could still mistake it for a branch of Subway. Subway should continue to look out for these small businesses that have similar names and make sure it is taken care of so these businesses don't make Subway look bad or try to take a percentage of their market share by copying their menu or business format.