Owner Paul Ardaji said he came up with the name while on a trip to Memphis with his business partner. "We were walking down the street and I said fuku he looked at me strange but he got where I was going," said Ardaji. With that, they named their business and sent a letter to the state to trademark the name. But they were soon turned down.
"I believe they're culturally unaware of what the word means," their attorney James D'Loughy said. "I think there is some puritanical viewpoint based on the letter we received." In a letter to the owners' attorney, the Florida Department of State Divisions of Corporations denied the trademark request because, "The mark consists of, compromises or includes immoral, deceptive or scandalous matter."
"The state looks at things from a very narrow scope. I think they'll realize it's not our intention to be scandalous or deceptive," said Ardaji. D'Loughy said if the restaurant opens without the trademark, it's vulnerable to the name being used by other businesses. "They would have to challenge that and that could cost the business a lot of money."
with news video.
5 comments:
In related stories in West Palm Beach: Dick's Sporting Goods is being shut down for obvious reasons and Bass Pro Shop is being asked to change their name in case anyone thinks the B is silent.
How can fuku be a Japanese word? The Japanese don't use our alphabet. Write it in the Japanese alphabet and then there's no problem is there?
They could spell it Fooku...
Like Chines pinyin, the Japanese uses Roman alphabet to represent the SOUND of their language for foreigners. The spelling can be a bit weird sometimes, but has been this way for decades, if not centuries. So we cannot simply replace fu with foo.
So Gareth is right, if you don't need to know how to pronounce the name of the restaurant, they can use the original Japanese (/ Chinese) letters.
I wonder how the brand FCUK got away with it.
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