Panda Express Opposes Trademark For ‘Trash Panda Vegan’ Food Truck

Here we go again. In so many of these trademark disputes, the disputer far too often is wielding overly broad trademarks granted by the USPTO to suggest that having that registered mark is all they need to shut down the use of those broad terms by others. Nowhere do you find any claims of actual customer confusion. Half the time you don't even get any real explanation as to why there is a concern for such confusion. It's all just Mine. Mine! MINE!"

That appears to be the case in a story in which Panda Express is opposing the trademark application for a single food truck in Arizona called Trash Panda Vegan."

Chef Krystal Mack is theownerof Trash Panda Vegan, a truck located in South Phoenix that she started during the COVID-19 pandemic. She prides herself on serving plant-based comfort food to her community, like burgers, hot dogs, mac & cheese, wings, and salads.

Months after Mack filed a trademark for her business in 2022, she learned that Panda Express, which serves American-Chinese food, claimed that her logo and name are close to their brand, 12 News reported. Both logos include a panda, but Mack's is more of a cartoon eating out of the trash and holding a burger.

The pictures do that last bit a lot more justice than plain text. The branding is nothing alike to Panda Express. The color schemes are different, the images are different, and the Trash Panda" text isn't even the largest font in the schema. See for yourself.

There's simply no way there is going to be any confusion in the marketplace over whether the food truck has anything to do with Panda Express. None.

And then there's this.

Panda Restaurant Group owns the trademark for the word Panda' for use in any restaurant service and have engaged in standard industry practice necessary to keep this trademark legally intact," a statement from the Panda Food Group said.

It sure doesn't appear that way based on some simple Google searching I did just now. We have the Panda Chinese Restaurant, Panda House, and Panda China. And those are just the first three examples I pulled after searching around for five minutes. Whatever the motivation behind opposing the mark for this food truck is, it most certainly cannot be said to be Panda Express' successful policing of all uses of panda" in trademarks for food services.

But trademark bullying typically works, especially in cases like this, where one entity has a vastly outsized legal war chest compared with the victim. So, while Mack wants to fight this and secure his trademark, she has to rely on crowdsourcing the funds to do so.

And given how spurious this opposition is, that's a damned shame.