Kentucky Fried Chicken Corp. v. Diversified Packagin Corp., 549 F.2d 368 (1977) p.416

FACTS

KFC franchise and KFC Corp controls franchisee in 47 states. The other three states operation were owned by someone else but had right to use the KFC mark. Therefore you have conucrrent use of the same mark in different geographical areas.

Defendant puts on KFC trademarks without permission and sells these inferior supplies to franchisees at a lesser cost than from normal suppliers. KFC sued. Defense is that KFC has abandonded trademark because you have the 3 other states were you can't control the quality.

ISSUE

Where you have in your geographical area and there are concurrent users, if you exercise that control in your area, is that adequate to show the mark has not been abandonded (in areas beyond your control)?

Created on: Thursday, February 24, 2000 at 17:51:58 (PST)