Hot Wings

[Griff]

[richlevy]

Zippy,

It's a great recipe, but you have to spell Tabasco® and Habanero right. Tabasco® is the brand name for oak aged pepper sauce.

FYI, from the Tabasco® website.

Does this mean that Maunsel White coined the TABASCO® trademark?
No. Maunsel White died in 1863, a year before his heirs first marketed his sauce; and when they did so, as mentioned above, they used the name "Maunsel White's Concentrated Essence of Tobasco Pepper." This product was subsequently referred to and known by the consuming public as "Maunsel White's." Therefore, because White's product was identified by the public using the shorthand designation "Maunsel White's," it is doubtful that the White family had any proprietary rights in the word "Tobasco."
In addition, the best information presently available indicates that Maunsel White's product ceased to be manufactured commercially during the 1870s. Thus, even if White's heirs claimed rights to "Tobasco," their failure to use the word beginning in the 1870s would have resulted in what is legally referred to as trademark abandonment.

IMO opinion, what they are saying is that 'yes' he did coin the name but he did not legally coin the name. De facto vs De Jure. (I am not a lawyer, I just sometimes sound like one)

Does McIlhenny Company have exclusive rights to the trademark "TABASCO®" if "Tabasco" is the name of geographic and political regions in Mexico?
Yes. Federal statutes provide and federal courts have held that a geographically descriptive word can be protected as a trademark when that word has acquired a secondary meaning.
"Tabasco" acquired a secondary meaning as a trademark as a result of the public's association of "Tabasco" with a single manufacturer, McIlhenny Company. Since the early 20th Century, federal courts have held, and more recently affirmed, that McIlhenny Company is the exclusive owner of the Tabasco mark. In addition, courts have enjoined the infringing use by others attempting to trade on the goodwill of McIlhenny Company as symbolized by its Tabasco mark.

IMO, what they are saying here is that if anyone does to us what we are alleged to have done to Maunsel White, we will bury you in lawyers.

Boy, after stumbling into that section of their website, I'm more confused by the answers than anything.

I wonder if a 'prior art' defense would work?

BTW, for all of you Southerners, check out the part about Nutria at the bottom of the page.

No. E. A. McIlhenny was at least the third nutria farmer in Louisiana; at least the second nutria farmer in the state to set loose the animals intentionally (another Louisiana farmer setting loose an unknown number of nutria in 1937, several months before McIlhenny even obtained his first nutria);

Hey, at least he wasn't the first.