The rights to The Krusty Krab, the underwater restaurant featured in the popular children?s TV series ?SpongeBob SquarePants,? belong to Viacom Inc. and not to a Texas restaurateur hoping to open a seafood chain with that name.
On Tuesday, Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that Viacom deserves trademark protection for The Krusty Krab, and that Javier Ramos and his company IJR cannot use it for their restaurants.
While Viacom had not registered ?The Krusty Krab? with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the name was important enough to the ?SpongeBob? series to deserve trademark protection.
The Krusty Krab has appeared in 166 of 203 SpongeBob episodes since its 1999 premiere
Ramos claimed not to have heard of The Krusty Krab when he began fishing for a name, and chose it after checking Google and finding no restaurants using that name.
22-05-2018 - Vidéo
