Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Why not Enduring Freedom Fries?

So Irving has given up on patenting Freedom Fries, a fruitless farcical campaign to cash in on the war on terror and US anti-French feeling. With right-wing Bush buddy Sarkozy now in control in France the market for Freedom Fries has sunk lower than the US dollar.
But why can't Irvine instead patent Enduring Freedom Fries. These could be marketed not only in the US but in Canada, Afghanistan, and who knows where else. There is even a branch of Operation Enduring Freedom in the Philippines and parts of Africa.

Cavendish Farms dropped Freedom Fries fight
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 | 7:01 AM AT
CBC News
Irving-owned Cavendish Farms has abandoned its efforts to trademark the name Freedom Fries, according to documents obtained by CBC News.

Irving's trademark efforts date back to 2003, when the war in Iraq began. Some Americans weren't happy with what they felt was a lack of support from France, which led to a movement to rename french fries Freedom Fries.

Some restaurants in the United States changed the name of french fries.
(CBC) "Some restaurants have changed the name [of french fries] to Freedom Fries," county commissioner Burt Aaronson of Palm Beach, Calif., told CBC News at the time. Aaronson emerged as one of the leaders of the movement to change the name of fries.

"One restaurant poured French wine down the drain and many people now are not buying French perfume."

Restaurants that changed their menus included the one in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Irving saw a marketing opportunity. Close to a month before the U.S. began its campaign in Baghdad, Irving-owned Cavendish Farms applied to the United States Patent Office to trademark the term "Freedom Fries."



No one from Irving will talk about the three years it spent trying to acquire the name, but documents show in 2006, the company gave up. By then, the chilly relationship between the U.S. and France had begun to thaw.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy was recently in Washington, where he spoke to Congress.

"Together, united, we must fight against terror," he told Congress, speaking in French.

Six others applied to trademark Freedom Fries. The current owner of the name is Neal Rowland, the owner of Cubbie's Restaurant in Beaufort, N.C.

No comments: