Superdawg Wins Court Battle Over Name

By Staff in Miscellaneous on Sep 20, 2009 9:15PM

Lesson of the day: if you try and imitate a Chicago hotdog institution, you won’t stand a chance. After months of being tied up in court, Superdawg, a 60-year-old hotdog stand on the Northwest side at Devon and Milwaukee, won a court battle against a New York restaurant called Superdog for rights to its name.

An order was signed by a federal judge on Sept. 10 requiring that Superdog change its name to Super Hot Dog, a fitting resolution to the trademark infringement lawsuit that Superdawg started back in June. The evidence against Superdog came in the form of pictures of their signs and employees shirts showing a cartoon hot dog with its arms raised up like a superhero, bearing more than slight resemblance to one of the 12-foot hot dog figures on Superdawg’s roof.

In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Superdawg founder Maurie Berman commented on the legal issue, “It is to a degree flattering, I guess, that someone chooses to emulate or pick up on our name,” said Berman. “But we also feel it is an intrusion and comes under the heading of thievery.” Berman also said that he now suspects another restaurant, this time in the northwestern United States, of imitating his company’s name.

Post by Anna Deem