Wendy’s snack bar in Zeeland continues to thwart American fast food giant

It sounds like a picaresque novel, a small snack bar in Zeeland hindering a major American fast food chain’s plans to open up in Benelux, but it does show just how important trademark registration can be.

If Wendy’s snack bar had not been registered in Benelux, it would never have had the power to exclude American Wendy’s from the region.

To put a quarter century of lawsuits in a nutshell: American Wendy’s did open a franchise in the Netherlands in the 1980s but closed it again shortly afterwards. In the late 1980s, a snack bar calling itself Wendy’s opened in Zeeland, a province in the south of the Netherlands, and the name was registered as a trademark in the Benelux. When American Wendy’s reopened an outlet in the Netherlands, the owner of the snack bar went to court, and in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Wendy’s snack bar.

American Wendy’s then attempted to have the Benelux trademark declared revoked. There was, after all, only one branch in the entire Benelux, surely that was not sufficient to claim a valid Benelux trademark? Unfortunately for American Wendy’s, there is no minimum-use requirement for a Benelux trademark, so they also lost that case.

Even after all its successes in the court room, snack bar Wendy’s is not sitting on its laurels. Cancellation actions are underway against European trademarks already registered and using the name WENDY’s, and two have already been decided in Wendy’s favour.

The Zeeland snack bar also files an opposition against any new European application by the US fast food chain containing the word WENDY'S; there have been five so far. Because a European registration also includes the Benelux, the owner of an older Benelux trademark is able to thwart an entire European application. This can pose quite a problem for a large company, as the last thing they want is to have to file a separate trademark application for each European country. In short, American Wendy’s has definitely not gotten rid of the small snack bar yet.

Fun fact: American Wendy's serves as a backdrop for an urban myth: someone sitting in a Wendy's restaurant eating a burger and a plate of fries, when out of nowhere the famous actor Bill Murray comes up, grabs a handful of fries from the plate, eats the fries and says: “Nobody’s ever going to believe you”.

Author: Arnaud Bos

Bio: Arnaud is trademark attorney and within Knijff responsible for the marketing & communication. Arnaud is specialist in the metaverse and music sectors and his client portfolio includes many upcoming and renowned bands. He keeps a close eye on the latest case law in the EU and will let you know when he sees remarkable applications.