
With no trademark, Sriracha name is showing up everywhere - ethana
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sriracha-trademark-20150211-story.html#page=1
======
Avitas
The "real deal" is TUONG OT SRIRACHA made by Huy Fong foods.

I have been a bit of a chili pepper, hot spice and hot sauce afficionado for a
few decades. I grow many kinds of chilis in my garden and do lots of different
things with them.

I remember seeing the Huy Fong Sriracha in a store about 10 years ago and
thinking that it was unusually inexpensive given the s8ze of the bottle. Upon
first use, I was surprised... almost floored. I remember thinking that this is
the best chili sauce I have ever tasted.

I brought it to work, to family gatherings and gave away countless bottles. It
seems like most people that like a hot spice tend to like the sauce.

I am of the opinion that lots of people know the Huy Fong botle, brand and
taste. I liken it to Grey Poupon, one of the best mustards money can buy--ok
Stadium Mustard is better IMO, but GP is still A+ material.

I have a feeling that Huy Fong has little to worry about. I have tried several
competetors (one was3x the price) and they are all inferior.

~~~
Scoundreller
I have to agree. It's a real disappointment to ask for "Sriracha Sauce" while
travelling outside of North America, having the host say "yes, we have that",
and then getting some watered down lukewarm sauce. (edit: to add to the
comment below, this experience was at a seemingly authentic(ish) Thai
restaurant in France with pictures of the king everywhere).

Huy Fong ought to brand their products like Pfizer is. (Though Pfizer is
trying to sell brand over generics, which is ridiculous when it comes to
medications).

~~~
derefr
> Though Pfizer is trying to sell brand over generics, which is ridiculous
> when it comes to medications

I'm pretty sure Pfizer is thinking "Tylenol does it. Why can't Viagra?"

~~~
Scoundreller
Tylenol (J&J) has the advantage of being able to create 3 dozen products with
the same ingredients and get a piece of shelf space every time because
inevitably someone is going to come in and ask for "the red Tylenol for back
pain caplets".

I wonder how many different kinds of sildenafil citrate we can get up to: "For
night time sex", "For day time sex", "lay back and relax sex", etc, etc.

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didgeoridoo
"We spend enormous time protecting the word 'Tabasco' so that we don't have
exactly this problem," Simmons said. "Why Mr. Tran did not do that, I don't
know."

I think you just answered your own question, Mr. Simmons. Mr. Tran enjoys
making delicious hot sauce, not spending his precious time running around
suing people.

~~~
alexqgb
"Tran also said he was discouraged to seek a trademark because it would have
been difficult getting one named after a real-life location...Unlike the name,
Tran trademarked his rooster logo and distinctive bottle."

~~~
sbi
Tabasco is a state in Mexico, though; how were its trademark owners able to
obtain the name?

~~~
adventured
Legally, it's due to context of use.

eg Microsoft doesn't own my ability to use the word windows as it pertains to
the physical objects I look out of my house through. I can start a window
company, and use the word windows accordingly. We have the clearest, best
windows, of any window manufacturer.

~~~
sbi
Thanks for explaining that to me. To add to the confusion, tabasco is also a
pepper cultivar named after the Mexican state.

------
mdturnerphys
"...the original spicy, sweet concoction — which was inspired by flavors from
across Southeast Asia and named after a coastal city in Thailand."

No. His sauce is based on Thai Sriracha sauce (which is probably named after
the Sriracha district in Thailand [1]). Trademarking the name would roughly be
the equivalent of taking mustard to Thailand and trademarking "Mustard".

[1] [http://shesimmers.com/2010/03/homemade-sriracha-how-to-
make-...](http://shesimmers.com/2010/03/homemade-sriracha-how-to-make-
authentic.html)

~~~
manachar
Gosh, that'd be like trademarking a name based on a region of Mexico[1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabasco](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabasco)

~~~
mdturnerphys
You missed the point. It's not that it's named after a location, it's that the
name was already (in Thailand) a generic term for a sauce based on chili
peppers and garlic.

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Mz
_He says it 's free advertising for a company that's never had a marketing
budget. It's unclear whether he's losing out: Sales of the original Sriracha
have grown from $60 million to $80 million in the last two years alone.

Tran is so proud of the condiment's popularity that he maintains a daily
ritual of searching the Internet for the latest Sriracha spinoff._

I like this man.

------
beachstartup
_> Unlike the name, Tran trademarked his rooster logo and distinctive bottle._

yes, the cock. this is the one that matters. create a market (well, sub-
market, really) _from scratch_ , give away the name, and trademark the symbol
that identifies your products as the original.

don't believe the aw shucks act for a minute, he's a killer businessman!

i went to school with some kids from his neighborhood - he runs in the same
circles as the guy who started panda express.

~~~
mxfh
Isn't it that older thai and asian brands are mostly image/icon (shark, dragon
fly, squid ...) based anyway, since the adult illiteracy rate in the 1970s was
still somewhere above 20% [1]. And that of older house wives, the assumed main
target group of cooking ingredients was probably even higher. So it made
little sense to go for a name only brand.

[1]
[http://www.h.chiba-u.ac.jp/mkt/Philippines.pdf](http://www.h.chiba-u.ac.jp/mkt/Philippines.pdf)

[http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/brands.html](http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/brands.html)

~~~
beachstartup
i have no idea what the hell you're talking about. huy fong foods is an
american brand, based in california, sold to a US market.

------
SwellJoe
I would be completely blind to other hot sauces in this category, which is not
really true of almost any other kind of hot sauce or product I can think of. I
didn't even realize there were other people making "Sriracha" sauce.

I have some loyalty to Zaaschila salsa for my breakfast tacos, but nothing
like my level of loyalty to Sriracha. I'd buy Cholula or some kind of habenero
salsa or something, if the store didn't have Zaaschila. But, I would buy
nothing to replace it if they didn't have Huy Fong chili sauces (I like their
chili garlic sauce even more than the standard chili sauce for cooking).

This is a pretty interesting experiment in trademark choices. I'll be
interested to see how it plays out. Certainly Sriracha growth has been
spectacular, and they do have a trademark on the distinctive bottle and
rooster (and many people call it "rooster sauce" or "cock sauce"), which is
what I'm looking for when I walk down the grocery aisle.

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parennoob
I think this is a great approach.

I always buy Huy Fong's one (and it is always available in most of the
supermarkets where I live) anyway. The knockoffs just don't taste the same.

~~~
simplemath
Accept no substitute for the rooster.

Same with Chili Garlic..

------
Evolved
FWIW (anecdotal evidence to follow)- I've purchased other varieties of
Sriracha sauce that were not the original Sriracha brand and they did not
taste the same and they did not taste as good.

As long as the recipe is protected, Sriracha is largely untouchable. Folks
will likely try other brands and then switch back when they're not satisfied.
That and the fact that Sriracha isn't expensive make it tough competition for
those trying to ride Huy Fong Foods' coattails.

Like others here, I'll compromise on Coke vs. Pepsi or
Valentina/Cholula/Tabasco/etc. but I have not and will not compromise on the
OG Sriracha.

~~~
mxfh
The notion of Huy Fong Rooster being the original is also quite a stretch
(that title woud arguably go to _Sriraja Panich_ ). It's just the brand of
siracha that happens to be big in the US, other styles are different and most
of the non-US ones are not even intendend to be copies of the Huy Fong
variety. They have their own distinct tastes.

------
alexvr
Does he not have legal grounds to sue for trademark infringement if he so
desired? Just because it's not a registered trademark doesn't mean it's not a
trademark. It's not like it's called "Hot Sauce (TM)" or something.

My mom regularly mistakes a nasty Texas Pete knockoff labeled Sriracha for the
famous stuff.

~~~
janesvilleseo
Probably, but at this point he is at the Kleenex, Xerox, Google stage of brand
name. He would do more harm then good if he pursued it.

~~~
chris_va
The Google trademark lawyers would roll over in their crypt if they read your
comment :).

~~~
alexvr
Maybe if they saw blatant, copycat visuals (ehem, Bing), but not name-wise:
I've never seen someone try to start a search engine called something like
"The Better Google"

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lazythrowaway
Sriracha is one of the few generics that Trader Joes is terrible at.

~~~
morcheeba
I second that. It's weak.

~~~
Avitas
Thirded. How could their tasters and product manager let it out of development
and testing. Hmm... a software analogy.

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noonespecial
If he had spent his time vigorously defending the word Sriracha instead of
making tasty sauce would there even be a Sriracha craze or would he have
labored in obsucrity producing for a tiny lawyer-guarded market segment?

Sometimes you have to choose whether to be the captain of a dinghy or a
deckhand on a battleship.

~~~
Scoundreller
I guess the answer is that there's room for both. Just as some seek out mass-
produced pop music, there's also a large segment of the population that seeks
out the exact opposite.

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ChrisArchitect
this is all good and the guy has a commendable mindset, but really it's a bit
naive no? Eventually this will hurt him. Because there will be so many
alternatives, of same quality or not, that someone will ask him why they
should buy his and he'll say it's the "Original". But without putting that on
the bottle and a little TM business, he wont' have much to go on. Seeing the
existence of Sriracha Heinz this week makes me think they will overpower him
slowly and quietly.

Of course, if he's 70, maybe he'll be fine drifting into oblivion on his pile
of money hehe

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logicallee
isn't there a common-law trademark (from usage rather than filing) -

[http://www.google.hu/search?q=common-
law+trademark](http://www.google.hu/search?q=common-law+trademark)

~~~
eggdude
That's what I find strange about the article. They seem to imply that it is
too late because he never filed for a trademark.

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ladelfa
No mention of the fact that Tran's sauce is an americanized knockoff (made
with jalapeno peppers) of legitimate Sriracha sauce from Sri Racha, Thailand.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
You can't "knock off" a cuisine concept, only a specific product.

Also, I'm kind of sick of the notion that any recipe invented in America must
automatically be inferior to its foreign predecessor. It's ridiculous to care
more about how "authentic" food is than about how it actually tastes.

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teachingaway
there's still a registered trademark for the logo, which includes the word
"SRIRACHA" in it.

[http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=74021095&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=74021095&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch)

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sethammons
I find sriracha to be "meh." Cholula all day, all long

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ronnier
I've grown tired of this obsession with Sriracha. Comments, articles, shirts,
holloween costumes, overheard comments from people in restaurants, ...

~~~
hayksaakian
that would be the definition of a 'fad' it's not the first, and it won't be
the last

~~~
ronnier
Yeah, but this has taken on some other unexplained level of weirdness.

~~~
jmiwhite
How so? Fads generally involve some lowest common denominator form of a thing
lots of people enjoy. Once the novelty wears off, reinventions (candied bacon,
anyone?) become part of the fad's empire until it fizzles or reaches a
background-level steady state.

