A company from British Columbia opened a pizza joint chain called Boston’s The Gourmet Pizza. Somehow they managed to secure a federal trademark for that strangely-worded mark, and they opened 50 Pizzerias nationwide.
On a little side-street in DeLand, Florida, there is a little coffee shop called the Boston Gourmet Coffeehouse.
For some reason, the big pizza company with the descriptive name thinks that it owns a monopoly on the words “Boston” and “gourmet” together.
This is only at the complaint stage, but this seems like a clear example of trademark bullying to me.
The complaint, signed by lawyers from Boca Raton and Denver is here.