‘Chubby’ and ‘fat’ terms too similar, claims US restaurant

A San Francisco-based restaurant has claimed consumers will be confused into thinking the words ‘chubby’ and ‘fat’ are synonymous, as part of a trademark infringement lawsuit.

The owner of Chubby Noodle targeted Fat Noodle, a restaurant set to open this year in the same city.

Suing under its full name Noodles Raw Catering, Chubby Noodle said the decision by Fat Noodle’s owner, Saison Group, to include ‘Fat’ in the name of its restaurant will make customers believe the two companies are related.

“The word ‘fat’ is a synonym of the word ‘chubby’ in plaintiff’s mark. And the only additional word in both marks—‘noodle’—is identical,” Chubby Noodle said in the complaint.

Chubby Noodle has also complained that the logo chosen for Fat Noodle, showing a bowl of noodles, is too similar to its own symbol—which shows chopsticks lifting noodles from a bowl.

Fat Noodle is expected to open in San Francisco later this year. Chubby Noodle has two branches in the city, open since 2011 and 2014.

Saison has a pending US trademark application for the name ‘Fat Noodle’.

In its complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of California on January 22, Chubby Noodle also said that “despite [Saison’s] knowledge” that it had used a trademark for ‘Chubby Noodle’ since 2011, Saison still registered the domain name fatnoodle.com.

A “telling example of the obvious similarity” between the restaurant names, Chubby Noodle added, is in an article on news website sfist.com that reported on Fat Noodle and said it “should not be confused” with Chubby Noodle.

Neither company responded to a request to comment.