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Home / confidentiality / Ireland / Jeremy Phillips / Passing off / Shhh ... it's a secret, as spicy burgers go to court

Shhh ... it's a secret, as spicy burgers go to court

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Thanks are due to the IPKat's friend Gemma O'Farrell for sending him this item from the Irish Times, entitled "Legal row over recipe for spice burger". According to this article,

"The makers of the spice burger have secured a number of [interim] High Court injunctions against a former director who it is claimed has been passing off burgers made by him as their product.

Walsh Family Foods Limited have sought the orders against one of its former directors Patrick Walsh, .. the son of the person credited with inventing popular chipper staple [the IPKat is unfamiliar with this term, which has no corresponding Wikipedia entry. An internet search revealed just 47 'hits', so it may be an obscure Irish term of art ...], and is one of the few people who knows the burger's secret recipe. ...

The injunctions restrain Mr Walsh from destroying any information or interfering with any of the companies property, in particular any documentation sent by the suppliers of ingredients for the spice burger. ...

The orders also restrain Mr Walsh deleting or destroying any confidential information that relate to any scope of the company’s business acquired by Mr Walsh during his employment with or in his capacity as a director of the company. ...

Mr Walsh, counsel said, sells the burgers as “Paddy Walsh Spice Burgers,” and the “Original Spice Burger Company”.

Those actions, counsel claimed, are in breach of the provisions of his contract of employment, which prevents him from revealing any trade secrets to any group or company. ...

[Evidence was given] that the spice burgers being made by Mr Walsh look indistinguishable from those made by the company [The Kat wonders whether this was on the basis of the ECJ's beloved "global appreciation" basis, or was there a burger-for-burger comparison of individual characteristics. Merpel wonders whether, strictly speaking, the burger is just the bit in the middle, the bun being merely an outer casing] [but] that Mr Walsh had re-introduced MSG into the product to give it a slightly stronger flavour"".

Speculation is rife as to whether counsel for the parties belong to the Burger Bar ...
Wikipedia on burgers here
Spice burger recipes with video here
Kangaroo burger here
Warren Burger here

Shhh ... it's a secret, as spicy burgers go to court Shhh ... it's a secret, as spicy burgers go to court Reviewed by Jeremy on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Rating: 5

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousWednesday, 26 August 2009 at 13:56:00 GMT+1

    A "chipper" is the deep fat fryer in fish and chip shops. So the spice burger is a staple of the chipper.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark AndersonWednesday, 26 August 2009 at 14:29:00 GMT+1

    Changing the subject entirely, does Mars have a remedy against Scottish chip shops that advertise deep fried Mars bars?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AJWednesday, 26 August 2009 at 14:41:00 GMT+1

    A quick bash on google.ie searching [pages from Ireland] only, suggests chipper is a term used in respect of restaurants and chipper vans.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ruthb!ll1Wednesday, 26 August 2009 at 15:05:00 GMT+1

    AJ is correct. A chipper usually refers to a local fast food place or van where patrons tend to buy take-aways (what Americans call takeouts).

    Check out:
    THE CHIPPER FOOD APRECIATION GROUP

    http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=5127654072

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownMonday, 20 August 2012 at 22:22:00 GMT+1

    fyi there is no middle bit, spiceburgers are not served in a bun. Also as previous commenters have mentioned, a chipper is an abbreviation of a fish and chip shop, a take-away establishment. I guess Americans would call chips French fries, although in Ireland they wouldn't be a thin cut.

    I remember being in America and a local Subway promotion offered a free bag of chips. I was so excited as I hadn't seen any in the country up to that point. Imagine my disappointment when I got a packet of crisps! Funny how different the English language is from American!

    ReplyDelete

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