Momofuku acquired âchile crunchâ in 2023 from the Denver company Chile Colonial, LLC as part of a legal settlement. Chile Colonial had taken legal action against Momofuku for âtrademark infringement, unfair competitionâ, according to court documents.
Iâm curious about the details of that case. Canât find anything about it outside of that article.
Sounds like what happened was that Chile Colonial sued Momofuku, which settled by buying the trademark and licensing it back. Momofukuâs lawyers presumably then went after other companies using the trademark. By law you have to defend your trademark or you may lose it.
Not surprised as momofuku has a history of disparaging traditional Asian condiment brands to uplift his. Not a fan of him or anything associated with him.
Straight up f this guy, what a loser.
This is not cool at all.
Lisa Cheng Smith owner of Taiwanese pantry retailer Yunhai and her article on chile crisp/crunch
Also helpful context article about Chang benefiting/appropriating from Taiwanese pork buns
Eddie Huang calling out DC on the gua bao and talking chili crunch in 2020. I canât stand to listen to him but for any brave soulsâŚ
Would make for an interesting follow up interview with Mr Eddie Huang in light of recent events @euno ?
Trademark chilli crunch?
Say what uhh dude chilli crunch has been around for a long time and is in a lot of Chinese restaurants across the world often made in house. Absolutely ridiculous!
my favorite part is that they filed for the âchili crunchâ trademark about a week ago. i have a hard time imagining theyâll secure it. (btw, âchili crunchâ TM is not to be confused with the âchile crunchâ TM they weirdly acquired settling a lawsuit as defendants)
it is unbelievably upsetting that he and/or his people are going after small businesses that pose absolutely no threat to his empire. each and every thing iâve seen him do or say since ~2020 makes me more and more upset, but get that bag. you need $$$ to buy huge tins of caviar to put on struggle food as a super funny and quirky thing for social media.
Momofuku probably didnât trademark âChili Crunchâ previously because they assumed, like most of us, that it was just descriptive. Then they got sued by Chile Colonial for infringing on their trademark, âChile Crunch,â and settled that by buying the trademark and licensing it back. From the lawyersâ perspective the next logical steps would be to register the âChili Crunchâ trademark and send cease-and-desist letters to anyone infringing on either trademark.
Eddie Huangâs attitude about Dave Chang in that podcast does not back up the haters here. The discussion of chili crisp starts around -1:09:00.
I mean logically, if you got sued, paid hundreds of thousands in legal fees and acquisition fees for the trademark, are you just going to let that be a sunk cost? Like @robert said, you need to now defend that trademark, otherwise why not just change your own branding and save yourself the legal fees and time. Thereâs definitely some calculus to evaluating the switching cost of relabeling all your products, marketing & digital content, internal documentation to chili crisp vs paying for legal fees. For Momofuku, they were at a large enough scale where acquiring the trademark made more sense. For these small businesses that operate on a much smaller scale, itâd be financially advantageous for the, to switch to chili crisp vs the legal fees (fewer customers, fewer jars made in scale, etc).
The article specifically mentions C&D for anyone infringing on the phrase âchili crunchâ, so theyâre not going after anyone labeled âchili crispâ
Gao previously made an attempt to trademark her signature Sichuan chili crisp in June 2019. The UTSPO refused the application in August that year, on the grounds that âSichuan chili crispâ was merely a descriptive term.
She reapplied to register the trademark on April 3.
This is just really ironic. A direct competitor, and a brand that did not receive the C&D from Momofuku foods is having a self righteous holier than thou attitude despite literally trying to do the exact same thing LOL
At the end of the day, I still think itâs scummy, but itâs just capitalistic & litigious America
i think you hit the nail on the head. Write Osayi Endolyn expands on this, essentially, as more and more VC money goes into foods and expands into non âWhiteâ American foodways to be âdiscoveredâ, donât be suprised to see this more frequently
More to the point in the instant case, you cannot own what someone else owns unless you buy it from them. Which is what Momofuku did with Chile Colonial. Maybe the USPTO should not have granted the trademark, but itâs not like this started with Momofuku. It started with Chile Colonial. (Howâs that for an ironic name?)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-hojel-28250bb/
America is capitalistic and litigious, sure, but Americans are way too eager to spew outrage about shit they canât be bothered to read up on first.
My hot take is that nearly universally in the past Iâve heard it referred to as âchili crisp.â âChili crunchâ should therefore be fair game.
She talks about this
Since the Guardian article came out, Iâve been asked whether Fly By Jing applying for the âSichuan Chili Crispâ trademark is not the same thing as what Momofuku is doing. Since word of the cease and desist letters have come out, our lawyers have advised reapplying for the specific term âSichuan Chili Crispâ to protect ourselves against this exact situation that our peers are now facing, as Momofuku or an equally emboldened brand could easily apply for the âchili crispâ term and put our companyâs livelihood at risk. But importantly: applying for a trademark does not equate using it to bully other emerging brands. For all the reasons I stated above, that would be extremely short-sighted and scarcity-minded.
to protect herself from momofuku and others that go after chili crisp. but doesnât address how or if she will enforce it if she gets the trademark⌠but if she doesnât plan on gate keeping then in theory she can license it cheaply?
actually having a trademark, yes you have to defend your trademark or risk losing rights to it - and then getting sued by someone else. itâs that simple.
Well I think Iâm going to boycott majordomo lol
Havenât read enough on this to have a firm opinion but thought Eddie Huang (of BaoHaus) had an interesting take on Insta. And historically heâs not a fan fwiw.
At least one trademark application for âChili Crispâ was rejected on the grounds that itâs just descriptive, so any other application should be rejected on the same grounds.