Good news for those who get confused over "IHOP"
 

Any time that I post something about the International House of Prayer (IHOP), I always get people who are disappointed because they thought that my thread was about pancakes. Apparently, the pancake house is angry over the name as well.

http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/ar...c4_lnk2|170984

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Ya I saw that one Drudge yesterday.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Oh, man, I thought this was going have some help on deciding what to order from the IHOP menu. That's so confusing.

:toofunny

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

:razz

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

But now I know why I get funny looks whenever I go into an IHOP and give them my prayer requests.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

:lol

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Is that really you in the avatar? You're a youngin!

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Joined AFF at 14. Been lurking and occasionally posting ever since. :)

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Oh ok, well I never realized you were just a tad pole in our big pond of old frogs (farts?) :thumbsup

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

:ursofunny:ursofunny
On the floor

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

This is actually SRS BIZ (Serious Business per the kids). IHOPancakes has to protect its trademark** and the only way to do that are to ask IHOPrayer to either change its name or get sued. If IHOPrayer refused to change its name, then it'd be lawsuit time. Now, a judge might find that there's no trademark infringement, but then again, it'd probably help IHOPrayer if the "I" didn't stand for "International" and the "H" didn't stand for "House" and the "O" didn't stand for "Of".

Some of us remember when "Auto Zone" was "Auto Shack" -- which was changed after Radio Shack objected. And then the car the "Lexus" was originally the "Lexis", but that was changed after "Lexis/Nexis" the legal/news search engine objected. So yeah, this is SRS BIZ. Mike Bickle & Co. better be taking this seriously otherwise they'll get eaten alive in court.

===

**If IHOPancakes doesn't protect its trademark and just let IHOPrayer use it without complaint, someone could come along and start up an International House of Pancakes that's really not related to the IHOPancakes corporation that holds the trademark and IHOPancakes couldn't complain or ask THEM to change their name. That's why it's SRS BIZ.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

I visited this place about 5 years ago. It is a large auditorium and great music performance. They can legally use their name. They could back off and print use of IHOP less. I doubt they (pancake house) could get very far in court.

They can't show harm.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

I was going to open a music store, International House Of Piccolos. Guess I better rethink that plan.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Actually, they CAN show harm. It's very confusing. I was just chatting with an attorney about this and we finally ended up having to refer to one organization as "Pancakes" and the other as "Prayer" in order to be clear. I also pointed out that the same acronym makes it difficult to search for information on Prayer OR Pancakes on the Internet.

My attorney friend noted that Prayer refers to its "university" as IHOPU--not good for saying there's no infringement. And, on point, there's the case of the World Wildlife Federation and World Wrestling Entertainment, which used to be "Federation" before Wildlife decided that Wrestling was infringing.

Pancakes HAS to defend its trademark or it loses it and then anyone can set up an Irving's House of Pancakes and call it IHOP. This is SRS BIZ as I said.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Is there much demand for piccolos? What about pianos?

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

IHOP bought Applebees. They also share use of an Apple with many other companies.
Don't take advice from lawyers. They make their living generating strife.
If
Imam
Hussein
Omar
Patel

Used his initials, there would be outrage from the social justice warriors if IHOP wrote a letter. Cease and decist

In a law regarding church and state separation, the gubment really can't rule on what a church calls itself. If the gubment takes this, they take a position over religion and expression.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Ah. Good point. Another reason to rethink my plan! lol

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

It won't be easy getting Bickle and Co to consider a name change. It'll be interesting seeing how this plays out.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

Remember when late night tv comedian Johnny Carson sued the portolet company for using the name "Here's Johnny"?

I thought it was small of him.
I thought he should just have used it as one of his jokes.

but, I'm not a lawyer.

by the way, ever notice how lawyer and liar are pronounced the same way by some folks?

My son and daughter in law go to a church named AHOP (A House of Prayer) in Xenia, OH. It's the only church I've ever been to that offered you earplugs at the door because of the decibel level of their worship team.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

There are so many things wrong with what you're saying here that I can't even begin to enumerate them. I know it's fashionable in some circles to bash the legal system and the legal profession, and I know I've done my share of the bashing. Patent and trademark law is a labyrinthine world unto itself, but I do know that the general principal is that if the trademark holder does not protect its property, then it falls into the public domain. Trademarks are valuable, very valuable property. The general trend of court cases favors Pancakes over Prayer for the same reason that the World Wrestling Federation is now called World Wrestling Entertainment.

I'd also point out that your statements regarding church-state separation are not true either. Churches can't use their status as a church to evade laws of general application and trademark law has nothing to do with religious doctrine, which the courts will not get into.**

======

**Usually happens when Church A is battling against Parent Group or Church B is battling against Breakoff Group C, it can get a bit hairy.

Re: Good news for those who get confused over "IHO
 

I thought the lawsuit was because the product was specifically degrading to Carson (and thus a kind of defamation), not because Carson had a trademark on "Here's Johnny." I'd have to research it more.

I've used the "lawyer/liar" pronunciation to great effect in the past, and probably will do so in the future.