Saturday, February 11, 2012

In-N-Out Burger Copied in China

As if the Chinese counterfeiters were bad enough, a company should also protect themselves against employees and former employees.  Apparently, some former employees took the concept from In-N-Out Burger to Shanghai, China.  With the Chinese showing an affinity for McDonalds Big Macs and Burger King Whoppers, some former employees of the Irvine-based In-N-Out thought they would try their hand at bringing In-N-Out to China.  The problem was that they did it without the blessing of In-N-Out and copied In-N-Out's trademarks and trade dress (and may have taken some trade secrets).

This is just another reminder that a company should protect itself against intellectual property theft by its current and former employees.  Depending on the company's size and intellectual property, the ways to protect against such theft varies.  Usually, it will start with an intellectual property audit (see earlier post) and result in building an intellectual property plan tailored to your company. 

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