SOMERS POINT, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — Lots of people love to eat tacos, often on Tuesdays — but who owns the phrase “Taco Tuesday?” A fight over ownership is playing out through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with a Jersey Shore restaurant at the center of the dispute.
Gregory Gregory of Gregory’s Restaurant in Somers Point, New Jersey says he coined the phrase in 1979 to help drum up business for his restaurant’s weekly taco special. He was granted a service mark in 1982. Now Taco Bell is issuing a challenge through the USPTO, saying “Taco Tuesday” is too much a part of everyday vernacular to copyright.
“Taco Bell, they just think we shouldn't, nobody should have ‘Taco Tuesday.’ If you look at their filings, they're just trying to liberate the phrase, so to speak,” he said.
“I've been paying my fees to the trademark office. I've been doing everything I'm supposed to do. I publish it with the R in the circle, I do what I'm supposed to do. Now a company comes and says, ‘You shouldn't have that anymore.’ Now they're gonna say it's OK that everything I did and all these monies I paid and all this work I put into this doesn't count.”
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But this isn’t the first challenge Gregory has faced. In 1989, Midwest chain Taco John’s challenged the federal trademark.
“Taco John's put a petition in that we hadn't advertised outside of the state of New Jersey and we didn't expand our brand,” Gregory recalled. “One thing led to another and we got overlawyered and decided to just surrender and we'll keep New Jersey, you can have everybody else.”
Taco John’s was granted ownership over the phrase that year in 49 states while Gregory’s got to use it in New Jersey. However, Gregory says Taco John’s isn’t fighting for the trademark anymore, leaving Gregory’s restaurant to go up against the national chain alone.
“It's going to affect me. I was hoping that they were going to win it and I was going to drag along,” he said.
“I don't know what happens after this, but with Taco John's pulling out, we're gonna have to do some hard thinking in the next couple of days.”
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