Pancake peace: IHOP drops trademark suit against church

The case of the pancake chain versus the church appears to be coming to an end.

The International House of Pancakes has dropped its trademark-infringement lawsuit against the International House of Prayer.

On Dec. 21, the Glendale-based restaurant chain dismissed its case against the church, with its lawyers citing "ongoing mediation with the defendants," according to documents filed in federal court in Los Angeles.

The chain sued the church in September, alleging it misappropriated IHOP trademarks on its website, ihop.org, and in signs and events at its headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., and in California ministries. The church has affiliates in Pasadena, San Jose, Santa Maria and Dublin, Calif. IHOP officials claimed the church's use of IHOP and related phrases confused customers, undermined trademarked uses and risked publicly linking the chain of 1,500 restaurants with a particular faith or church.

Read the full story here.

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-- Bill Kisliuk, Glendale News-Press / Times Community News

Photo: Pancakes served up at an area IHOP. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[ergie]

What the shyster lawyer for IHOP forget is that they illegally claimed possesion of the "ihop" acronym without proper credit or compensation when in fact it was coined by memebers of the public, not unlike people saying "target" as "targeat" (as in french) to alude to a more affluent type of store, this was adopted in a few commercials by target but they certainly can't lay claim to it, and neither can IHOP without proper credit or compensation, that notwithstanding... there is plenty of case law wherein you can not trademark the acronym for your company name, it is the entire written company name as declared on tax and license forms that is the trade name or trademark of a company. I remember joining in with the use of the term IHOP in the early 70's lets all get together and sue international house of pancakes for stealing it.

[Grandpa]

I like pancakes. Do you like pancakes?

[Sharon]

I can see the point of IHOP. They don't want to be mistakenly affliated to the church. That's bad business practice. If you ask anyone what IHOP is they'll say International House of Pancake. IHOP should have bought all the websites .com, .org, .biz, etc. That would have saved them quite of bit of headache.

[Rudi Logan]

Does the restaurant chain think no one can tell the difference between a pancake and a wafer?

[John De Salvio]

The lawsuit didn't have a prayer...

[CAN]

Or a restaurant and house of prayer?

[Confused Pancake Prayer]

This be terrible. I showed up at the pancake place expecting to find a prayer meeting, so where are my reparations?

[Perry Yoshida]

I want some pancakes now

[Jutti]

Rudi! LOL! Great comment!

[Ron]

God bless those pancakes...

[Tom]

I.H.O.Prayer batter have an appeal like the _photo_ above (lip-smack, 'hop'ping car for breakfast now).

[macon church]

We have got to go to a loser pays lawsuit system and most of these ridiculous cases would not even be thought of

[Light2000]

Thank you House of Pancakes for being a bit less greedy than most corporations... I will make sure to patronize your business now that you have seen some light...

[Daud Maud'dib]

I was already to be up in arms against the Pancake House but in the end I can see their point.