Word: bowlful
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Cereality's competitors, mostly entrepreneurs like Roth, have included an Iowa City restaurant named Cereology, later redubbed the Cereal Cabinet; the Cereal Bowl in Miami; and Bowls: a Cereal Joint in Gainesville, Fla. "With any good business idea, you're faced with people who see you've cracked the code and who try to cash in on it," Roth says...
...giants like Dodge, Old Navy and Quaker. To protect itself, Cereality has applied for trademarks for its name and about 50 slogans it uses in signs and ads. (Be careful next time you say, "It's always Saturday morning," or ask over the breakfast table, "What's in your bowl?") It has also applied for patents covering dozens of business processes, from cereal-storage methods--no one likes stale granola--to ways of combining Kix and Trix in a takeout...
...they called the lawyers. After hiring Perkins Coie LLP, the Seattle law firm that helped Amazon.com patent its one-click buying button, Cereality sent warning letters last summer to the Cereal Bowl and Bowls, admonishing them to avoid using similar-sounding product names and slogans. Cereal Bowl fought back, sending its own warning letter to Bowls and a defiant reply to Cereality. Sensing the competitive crunch, the Cereal Cabinet shuttered and switched to Jamaican food. In March, Cereality raised the stakes, suing yet another start-up, Ohio's Cerealicious, for trademark infringement...
...Some of Cereality's patent claims may be valid," says Kenneth Rader, 24, CEO of the Cereal Bowl, "but others are ridiculous." Rader acknowledges that it would be unfair for others to copy Cereality's method of serving cereal in Chinese-food containers, but he draws the line at Cereality's attempt to lay sole claim to the idea of mixing brand-name-candy toppings with cereal...
Roth says that Cereality, which is nearing national expansion and has 46 employees, is in a different league from the Cereal Bowl, a small shop run by recent business school graduates. He welcomes healthy competition, though. "We're happy to see competitors show up to serve cereal away from home, because it adds legitimacy to the idea," he says. But when others imitate Cereality's slogans or serving buckets, Roth says his responsibility to investors requires him to fight back. And any company that files a patent application, Roth notes, is obligated by law to inform potential rivals...