Taco Bell Petitions to End ‘Taco Tuesday’ Trademark

Taco Bell filed a petition with federal patent officials on – what else? – Tuesday, asking for the revocation of the “Taco Tuesday” patent that has been held since 1989 by Wyoming-based restaurant chain Taco John’s.

In a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, Taco Bell argued that too many restaurants and other food providers use the “taco Tuesday” phrase for anyone to hold exclusive rights to it.

“Taco Bell believes ‘Taco Tuesday’ is critical to everyone’s Tuesday,” the company said in the filing. “To deprive anyone of saying ‘Taco Tuesday’ — be it Taco Bell or anyone who provides tacos to the world — is like depriving the world of sunshine itself.”

Taco John’s first trademarked the phrase after a franchisee in Minnesota launched a “Taco Twosday” promotion in an effort to boost sales on the slowest day of the week, offering two tacos for 99 cents.

The company has sought in the past to block restaurants from using the “Taco Tuesday,” including to a brewery just five blocks from Taco John’s company headquarters in Cheyenne.

Taco John’s has 40 days to file a response to the petition and the two restaurant chains could go to trial over the phrase if they fail to reach an agreement.

Taco John’s responded publicly to the petition by announcing a “Taco Tuesday” promotion, selling two tacos for $2 every day through the end of May.

“When it comes right down to it, we’re lovers, not fighters, at Taco John’s,” the company’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement. “But when a big, bad bully threatens to take away the mark our forefathers originated so many decades ago, well, that just rings hollow to us.”