Website Attempts to Challenge Hon Trademark

A website called Welcome To Baltimore, Hon! is attempting to challenge Denise Whiting's  trademark of "hon" by selling a coffee mug "emblazoned" with the word in an attempt to get Whiting to take legal action.

"WTBH is offering for sale a coffee mug emblazoned with a common term of endearment in order to call Whiting's bluff and make her enforce trademark claims and prove the validity of the trademark," writes Bruce Goldfarb, publisher and executive editor of the Welcome To Baltimore, Hon! website.

Goldfarb is also the local editor of Arbutus Patch, a separate site from North Baltimore Patch, which has covered the "Hon" story. Arbutus Patch is, however, part of the same Patch.com network of community news websites. His action was not taken in his role as a Patch editor. 

In an at his site, Goldfarb explains why he took the unusual step of inserting himself into a news story. 

Goldfarb believes that the "hon" trademark is not valid because " 'hon' is being used—and sold—by Whiting in its common meaning as a term of endearment and not to exclusively represent a business, product or service."

But Whiting has legally owned the trademark for "hon" since 2005 to protect products sold from her Café Hon and other stores in Hampden and her Honfest event in Hampden. She has owned the "Cafe Hon" trademark since 1992.

In 2005, an attorney representing Whiting wrote to the owners of a store, since closed, called Thanks, Hon! to "immediately cease and desist from any use of the term HON."

"Over the years, the Mark has been used by Café Hon to identify its goods and services and to distinguish them from those sold by others," states the Oct. 28, 2005 letter written to Thanks, Hon!'s owner. "Such use includes restaurant services and retail services for gifts and novelties including clothing, paper goods, note cards, greeting cards, gift bags, etc."

Whiting has said the trademark is necessary to protect the business and products she has built since 1992, a move her defenders say she has every right to pursue.

Details about her "hon" trademark were first reported in The Baltimore Sun. Protests and online resistance to her ownership of the word quickly followed.