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April 19, 2019

Who owns aloha? Hawaii eyes intellectual property protection for its native culture

  • A Chicago restaurant chain owner trademarked the name “Aloha Poke” and demanded other fish shops stop using the moniker.
    • By AUDREY McAVOY
    Associated Press

    HONOLULU — Last year, much of Hawaii was shocked to learn a Chicago restaurant chain owner had trademarked the name “Aloha Poke” and wrote to cubed fish shops around the country demanding that they stop using the Hawaiian language moniker for their own eateries. The cease-and-desist letters targeted a downtown Honolulu restaurant and a Native Hawaiian-operated restaurant in Anchorage, among others.

    Now, Hawaii lawmakers are considering adopting a resolution calling for the creation of legal protections for Native Hawaiian cultural intellectual property. The effort predates Aloha Poke, but that episode is lending a sense of urgency to a long-festering concern not unfamiliar to native cultures in other parts of the world.


     
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