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A fact from Umami Burger appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 June 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Out of professional curiosity, I searched the USPTO trade marks register for the mark "UMAMI", and none of them were registered to Adam Fleischman as the lead currently claims. Unless there is some nuance in the source which was missed by the editor inserting the claim, it seems like the claim is wrong, or at least inaccurate. (I was curious as to what goods and services the mark might be registered for, and on what grounds - an argument could be made that "umami" is sufficiently well known as to be a descriptive word for food with an umami taste, which one would expect burgers to have.)--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I added The New Yorker as a source, in addition to the existing Los Angeles Times reference. LAT does say the trademark's "availability might have been due to the fact that the trademark office thought 'umami' was a brand and didn't realize it's considered the fifth taste, after sweet, sour, bitter and salty." Could the trademark be registered to the restaurant group?—Bagumba (talk) 18:16, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, LAT says the trademark was "purchased from a restaurant on Long Island called Umami Café." A query at USTO verifies that Umami Cafe trademarks were transferred to Umami Burger. I'm not a trademark expert to challenge the claim made in LAT that it also includes protection for umami.—Bagumba (talk) 18:33, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I also see that that's what the articles say, but the fact remains that there is no mark record for "umami" which is owned by Adam Fleischman (I also ran a proprietorship search to identify any marks owned by Fleischman, and none was found). Instead, there are a dozen "umami" marks which are registered to other people in respect of a variety of goods and services. I considered the possibility that the articles are talking about an unregistered trade mark, which would explain why it wouldn't show on the reigster, but this possibility is contradicted by the reference to "availability" and trade mark office ignorance, which would only be relevant for a registered mark. So the statement is dubious in the sense that it contradicts the official trade mark register, and it is misleading in the sense that there are other people on the register who own "umami" marks, so Fleischman cannot be described as owning the "umami" mark, as there is no "the" "umami" mark.
Finally, the LAT claim is not that the trade mark "Uammi Burger" confers protection for "Umami" (which is probably not true), but that the trade mark "Umami" was transferred to Fleischman by Umami Cafe. Which is not borne out by the records. (And those marks are held by Umami Burger Licensing USA. LLC, not by Fleischman.)
I know Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source and reflect what is reported in secondary source, but that does not mean statements in secondary sources should be reported as fact when we know fairly definitively that they are inaccurate or misleading. I am not suggesting that we make assertions based on USPTO records alone, since that would be borderline original research. My suggestion is to either qualiy the statement as "Umami Burger claims..." or "some media reports claim...", or to delete the claim completely. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we need to be accurate according to secondary sources, while being wary of original research. I think the main concern is whether exclusive rights to the word to umami was obtained. I did find that Umami Cafe sued Umami Burger in early 2011. My guess (still not an expert) is that there are some rights (even if not exclusive) to the word in the trademark, and Umami Burger just bought the trademark outright, perhaps as a settlement. Since none of the sources prefaced that it was Fleishman that made the claim about the trademark of the work, I think we need to assume that the sources either corroborated the claims or at least did not find it dubious. Still, I think we can soften the wording so that WP doesnt imply that exclusive trademark to the word exists, and explain in a footnote per WP:Inaccuracy the other "Umami" trademarks at USPTO. I've made these changes.—Bagumba (talk) 20:19, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Their burgers have a umami flavor, which is outside of the traditionally accepted tastes of salty, sweet, bitter, and sour." Umami is, simply put, "savory" (glutamate) flavor. I doubt there are (meat) burgers that don't have that flavor... unless Umami burgers have a particuarly intense glutamate flavor... -- megA (talk) 04:34, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
