A teenager faced legal challenges after being called out by KFC due to intellectual property rights.
Seventeen-year-old Ben Yang, a student at Riccarton High School, launched his own business last year and named it “YFC,” short for ‘Yang Fried Chicken’. The business, which specialises in selling Korean fried chicken and other items, featured a red logo that included a cartoon illustration of Yang.
Fast food giant KFC objected to the resemblance of YFC’s branding to its own logo and sent legal documents demanding Yang to stop using the name. He was instructed to rename his food truck and has since launched a contest to find a new logo and help with the rebranding process.
Yang said he was in disbelief upon receiving the letter. “I was really shocked that KFC would actually take this kind of action and waste all their time and money when they are literally the biggest chicken brand in the world.”
However, intellectual property lawyer Ben Cain clarified that the size of the business enforcing its rights is essentially irrelevant in this context.
“Companies like KFC take their IP rights in their brands, be they trademark rights, copyright rights or ‘get-up’ rights in how the brand is graphically represented, very seriously, and they do so for good reasons,” Cain said.
“He’s done something he shouldn’t, perhaps naively: he’s emulated the KFC name, logo and brand colours and, as a consequence, received a standard letter from a business asking him to stop and change. Such a letter is standard practice for a company the size of KFC – not calling an alleged infringer and saying, ‘Hey, please stop’,” he added.
Rob Batty, co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Intellectual Property and an associate law professor at the University of Auckland, also noted that enforcement actions against trademark infringement typically aim to prevent customer confusion, as this can potentially result in the loss of sales.
“The prospect of consumers being confused by the use of the same or a similar sign can also potentially damage the reputation associated with a trademark,” he said.
Batty also shared ways to protect a business’ intellectual property rights.
“When you have come up with a new brand name or a new logo for your business, you should check whether the same name or logo (or a similar name or logo) has been registered as a trademark by another trader.”
The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand also provides support for searching and registering trademarks. It can also help you find out whether your name or logo closely resembles an existing one.