International Law

Candy Bouquet Trademark Issues

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When you sign a franchise agreement, you are not buying a business.

Instead, you are renting a trademark or nationally recognized symbol for a specific time, accepting oversight of your business practices, and contributing to a national advertising program, which is presumably designed to enhance the systems' trademark

Well recognized trademarks are valuable because consumers make their decision about where to shop by relying upon these trademarks.

But just because you are buying a franchise doesn't mean that the systems' brand is well known.

Over at Blue Mau Mau, there are some franchisees complaining about this problem with regards to the "Candy Bouquet who claims to spend millions on building their brand - but did you know that the name "Candy Bouquet" can be used by anyone! The trademark office denied their claim to the name  - not once but twice!

The only trademarks they own are their logo and a few slogans!

The millions they spend is on selling more franchises seeing how the average life of a franchise is only estimated at 2.5 years!

The attrition rate is also estimated at 60-70%! So many of the franchisees listed on the candybouquet.com locator are homebased businesses for which they work a real job because the Candy Bouquets do NOT support themselves!"

These franchisees claim that they were not able to determine this trademark issue before buying the franchise.

This is nonsense. It is simply to search the US trademark database, which you can find here. Type in "Candy Bouquet" and you will find that the franchisor "owns" only a logo. They disclaim any trademark interest in the words "Candy Bouquet" apart from the logo.

Who much you would pay for this logo? Well, do you think that people who wanted to buy candy bouquet's would purchase from your store if you didn't have the franchisor's logo, but advertised your store as "The Candy Bouquet Shoppe"?

Worse, suppose your location started doing well selling candy bouquets, then there would be nothing to prevent the competition from opening next door with a store called "The Candy Bouquet Shoppe". And you are paying for this?

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).