KFC hits back at lawsuit, claims Boise pizza company fraudulently obtained trademarks
Col. Sanders is biting back.
KFC, the company formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, denies it stole the name and logo of a Boise-based pizza company. And it claims Smoky Mountain Pizzeria Grill fraudulently obtained trademarks that form the basis of a dispute between the two companies.
Last month, Triple T Enterprises, Smoky Mountain’s Boise-based owner, sued KFC in U.S. District Court in Boise. It says KFC infringed on Smoky Mountain’s name and logo after developing a Smoky Mountain line of barbecue chicken.
“The defendants are using the same word mark and a confusingly similar variation of the Triple T Smoky Mountain logo that incorporates both the term ‘Smoky Mountain’ as well as Triple T’s three mountain ridges into KFC’s logo mark,” Boise attorney Scott Tschirgi wrote in the complaint.
A word mark is a registration of a company name or product, without regard to font, style, design or graphic features. It gives the owner flexibility to create different styles to illustrate the name.
Smoky Mountain, which reported sales exceeding $30 million over the past three years, was founded in Ketchum in 1992. Today, it operates two restaurants in Boise and one each in Meridian, Eagle, Kuna, Nampa, Mountain Home and Ketchum.
In an answer filed Friday, KFC denies it did anything wrong. It also filed a countersuit that accuses Smoky Mountain of fraudulently obtaining trademarks for the company name, its three-peak logo and other uses.
KFC, which operates 4,033 restaurants in the United States, including 15 in Idaho, says the term “smoky mountain” is well-known in the South to describe the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina. It’s also a common term for a type of barbecue and barbecue sauce popular in the South.
KFC claims Triple T Enterprises, in its filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said the term “Smoky Mountain,” had no particular significance, despite the Great Smoky Mountains and Idaho’s Smoky Mountains, a mountain range outside Ketchum and Sun Valley.
An online history of Smoky Mountain included in KFC’s filing says the Ketchum location is where “Smoky Mountain got it’s (sic) name.”
“The statement was made with knowledge of its falsity and with the intent to deceive the Patent and Trademark Office and cause it to issue the registrations, which it did,” Boise attorney B. Newal Squyres, who represents KFC, wrote in a 26-page answer.
KFC asked the court to throw out Smoky Mountain’s claim against it and to order the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Smoky Mountain’s trademarks.
“Because (the) plaintiff’s registrations were obtained fraudulently, they cannot form the basis of a claim for infringement,” Squyres wrote in arguing for a dismissal.
Tschirgi, Smoky Mountain’s attorney, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
KFC said it began using smoky mountain to describe its line of chicken in 2017. The company said Smoky Mountain Pizzeria never contacted KFC to complain about the use or asking it to cease use of the term before filing its lawsuit on Dec. 30.
Smoky Mountain also sued Grubhub and Postmates, two food delivery services. They’re accused of delivering Smoky Mountain-branded chicken from KFC to customers.
Grubhub denied doing anything wrong, as well. It’s answer was contained in KFC’s filing. Postmates has not yet responded to the complaint.
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
