Confusingly Similar Explained

If you take Exit 208 will you be able to have lunch at PANERA?

Did you have to look again to be sure?

Here’s a close up.

In this case, it’s not infringement because Panera Bread Co. started off as Saint Louis Bread Co. JAB Holding Company changed the name to PANERA but has left the original name on some locations in and around St. Louis, MO.

Let’s pretend Saint Louis Bread Co. wasn’t legit, would the sign be OK?

Trademarks don’t have to be identical for there to be a problem, they just have to be “confusingly similar.” You might think Saint Louis Bread Co. would be in the clear because SAINT LOUIS BREAD CO. is completely different from PANERA but that’s not how it works:

• The logo is identical: Stylized woman holding a loaf of bread.
• The fonts used are the same: Look at the “a” and the “n” in each sign.
• It’s hard to tell because of the lighting, but the colors are also the same.

It also matters that potential customers are whizzing by at 65 miles per hour. They catch a glimpse of the sign and think, “I could do with a Napa almond chicken salad sandwich right about now.” They take Exit 208 and, instead of finding PANERA, they find SAINT LOUIS BREAD CO. But, what the hell, they’ve already left the freeway and their stomachs are grumbling. This is “initial interest confusion” and it counts as infringement.

Big shout out to Cassandra G. for seeing this road sign, catching a photo, and sending it to me.

Panera Bread image (C) 2015 Dannyhouk, CC BY-SA 4.0?https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo of road sign (C) 2021 Cassandra Glaser. Used with permission.