MELBOURNE, Australia — Call it a tale of two Wendy’s. One is an American fast-food chain, known for the pigtailed girl on its logo and its square hamburger patties on circular buns. The other, Wendy’s Milk Bar, slings soft-serve ice cream, hot dogs and “supashakes” in suburban Australian shopping malls.
For decades, the companies’ near-identical names have caused few problems. But reports that the American hamburger company is considering establishing an Australian presence have prompted wild speculation of a Wendy’s-on-Wendy’s dust-up.
Earlier this week, Abigail Pringle, the president and chief development officer of the American Wendy’s, told the Australian Financial Review that she intended to meet virtually with prospective franchisees in Australia and hoped to establish outlets across the country.
There are about 7,000 Wendy’s hamburger restaurants worldwide, including a few in neighboring New Zealand. Company officials have previously said they plan to increase the number of stores to 8,500 by 2025. McDonald’s, the industry leader, has more than 38,000 outlets globally, including locations in Australia.
“We believe Australia is a lucrative market for long-term growth,” Ms. Pringle said. “We think that the Australian market could be hundreds of restaurants.”
But what would those hundreds of outlets be called — and would the companies be forced to fight to the last French fry for the right to their name? Immediately, many in Australia thought of another American fast-food chain that had faced similar issues.
Since 1971, international visitors to Australia have had cause to pause while passing by what seems remarkably like a Burger King. Outlets of the fast food chain have the same look and color scheme, and even the same logo design, with a name sandwiched between hamburger buns. But in Australia, the company’s franchisee operates under the somewhat less regal moniker of “Hungry Jack’s,” in part for its founder, the Australian billionaire Jack Cowin.
“When Burger King thought to operate in Australia, someone had a registered trademark that really gave them the monopoly to the name Burger King,” said Andrew Terry, a professor of business regulation at the University of Sydney Business School.
“The only option for Burger King was to buy the proprietor of that trademark out” — in this case, the owner of a small to-go restaurant in the city of Adelaide — “or else, as they chose to do, to operate under another name,” he said.
What does this mean for the twin Wendy’s? Potentially less than you might expect, said Blair Bevan, an intellectual property lawyer based in Sydney and partner at the commercial law firm Holding Redlich.
“It could be a storm in a sundae cup,” Mr. Bevan said.
Both Wendy’s have longstanding registered trademarks in Australia, and both had recently been renewed, he said. They had been accepted under a particular provision of Australian intellectual property law.
It was therefore likely that the Australian trademarks office had highlighted the possibility of confusion in the marketplace, requiring either further evidence or a letter of consent from the other party, Mr. Bevan said.
“I think that there has probably already been a deal done, and that Wendy’s Australia has already acknowledged Wendy’s U.S. trademark rights here in Australia and allowed the coexistence,” he said. That would allow the two trademark applications to be accepted and registered unopposed.
So long as the Australian Wendy’s sticks to ice cream and hot dogs, and the American Wendy’s offers burgers and fries, there would be little issue, Mr. Bevan said. “I suspect they will both stay in their lanes to try and limit that confusion,” he added.
Neither company responded to a request for comment.
The American Wendy’s might still face some pushback from local consumers, especially if Australian franchisees felt they were getting a bad deal, Mr. Terry, of the University of Sydney, said. “Nothing drives the patriotism of the Australians like the big boys from overseas coming in and riding roughshod over everything,” he said.
Similar issues have bedeviled other American fast-food companies looking to the Australian market.
In 1981, Taco Bell (in the United States) clashed with a company by the same name in Sydney’s Bondi Beach area. (The American outfit lost.) Then in 2021, it reached a legal settlement with an Australian Mexican restaurant, Taco Bill. And in Sydney, a company called Down N’ Out Burger was forced to change its name to High N’ Dry in 2020, after years of legal wrangling with the West Coast fast food chain In-N-Out.
It’s not just restaurants creating confusion. An Australian home goods company — Target — has no relation to the American big box retailer of the same name, despite having identical branding, bull’s-eye logos and similar stock.
For Mr. Cowin, of Hungry Jack’s, the news dredged up memories from the early 1980s, when Wendy’s last tried to plant its flag in Australia.
“What they don’t mention is that they’ve been here before,” Mr. Cowin told the Australian Financial Review on Monday. At the time, he had been the victor, swooping in to purchase 11 Wendy’s restaurants after the company left Australia in 1985. He closed two stores and converted nine others into Hungry Jack’s outlets.
Naming rights aside, the Australian market was still harder to break into than it might appear. “A lot of these companies come in thinking Australia is the 51st state of the United States, because we speak the same language,” he said, adding: “It’s going to be tough for anyone starting from scratch.”
