Do not be so bold as to name a menu item “Family Feast,” even if you sell the item once a year on Christmas and you own a tiny pub on top of a remote mountain in England. What? Didn’t you know that KFC’s trademark applies to people who live on top of mountains and own pubs and have their picture taken with sheep wandering around? Tracy Daly is such a person, and she has received a very serious legal threat from KFC over an item on her menu called, “Family Feast.”

At first she thought it was a joke, but when she called the lawyer who’d signed the letter, she found out that KFC took her trademark infringement very seriously.

“I told him to look at our website. We and KFC are worlds apart in the food business. We are not in the High Street we are so remote we are just a speck on the landscape. But he was so serious that in the end I had to put the phone down.

“It beggars belief, I am dumbfounded. They are a multi-million pound, international organisation and I am a little lady up a mountain.

“I don’t like bullies and I think they want to bully me. They have turned heavy-duty, big-city lawyers loose on us, but I have already had to firms of solicitors offering to take on our case for nothing.

“We will have to consider what we do, but we just hope KFC will realise they have been a bit silly and just let it drop. Perhaps we should apolgise on our website for threatening their business.”

Tracy continues:

“It’s a traditional Christmas dinner: pate, turkey, road beef and the trimmings, Christmas pud. It about as similar to a KFC meal as chalk is to cheese.

“We do have chicken and chips with a salad on the menu, but we use local free-range birds – no coating, no secret spices. I could understand if we had set out to rip off what they do, but this is worlds away.”

You’re probably thinking, “How silly. KFC must have made a mistake. Surely when the reporter contacted them about the absurdity of it all…” Here’s KFC’s response:

“Family Feast is a registered trade mark of Kentucky Fried Chicken (Great Britain) Limited. KFC devotes significant resources to promoting and protecting its trade marks. This particular instance is being dealt with by our solicitors.”

Perhaps we should add Yum! Brands to Faces of the RIAA. —MEGHANN MARCO

KFC launches legal action against pub’s festive menu [thisislondon]
(Photo: thisislondon)

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