From The Guardian
Pho: Vietnam’s national dish, is a noodle soup with beef broth. Photograph: Alamy
When a small Vietnamese cafe in London announced that it had been asked to change its name because another firm had trademarked the word ‘pho’, there was an uproar. Can one restaurant ‘own’ a country’s national dish?
Forget the proverbial storm in a teacup; this one has been all-out war in a big steamy soup bowl. Earlier this week a small Vietnamese restaurant punningly called Mo Pho , which has been trading quietly in south-east London for years, announced it had received a legal letter telling it to change its name. Pho Holdings Ltd, which operates the small glossy chain of Pho Vietnamese cafes – eight so far, with a ninth to open in Leeds shortly – said it had trademarked the word “pho” six years ago and only it could use it as the title of a restaurant business.
Cue outrage and accusations of bullying in what passes for the foodie village square these days, or Twitter as it’s better known.
Pho, a deep and restorative beef broth with noodles, meat and lots of fresh green herbs, is the national dish of Vietnam. As one of many furious tweets said, it was a bit like trademarking “sandwich and not letting others use it”. Or fish’n’chips. Or pizza. It didn’t help that a big company were getting all legal and heavy on a bunch of Vietnamese people selling their nation’s most famous dish. For its part, Pho Holdings insisted it hadn’t trademarked the dish, only the company name and was merely protecting its business interests.
Read the full article from the Guardian.
