Today is something called National Taco Day, which is a total bullshit holiday made up in 2000 by Chuy's in Austin. It started as a marketing ploy, and Chuy's actually filed a trademark application for it, but it let its rights to the term slip, meaning hundreds of lazy bloggers and reporters can now tell people where to go to eat tacos and ignore the meal the rest of the year.
But while poking around the United States Patent and Trademark Office, I found something downright bizarre: a wine company has applied to register “Taco Truck” as its trademark.
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Don Sebastiani & Sons of Sonoma County applied for the trademark in August, and while it's nowhere near close to getting approved, one wonders why a wine company is interested in using “taco truck” for any of its services, let alone want to obtain legal protection against its unwarranted use by others. All that was noted in the application is that “the applicant has a bona fide intention to use or use through the applicant's related company or licensee the mark in commerce on or in connection with the identified goods and/or services.”
This better not be one of those bullshit “urban homesteading” trademark attempts that stops people from using a term that long ago entered American vernacular. We will obviously monitor the situation to ensure our taco free speech isn't limited in any way whatsoever. . . .
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