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Perhaps there is a case to be made here around how reasonable person principle should be applied, because the defense can argue that only an idiot blames the company cooking the food when the independently-contracted delivery guy is too slow.

If they can hinge a case on whether the reasonable person can tell the difference, there's meat on the bones, but I don't see this case ending with Grubhub's business model being declared illegal (only with clarifications as to how to maintain the reputation protection aspect of trademark against the nominative fair use aspect of trademark).



No lawyer but demonstrating that "only an idiot blames the company cooking the food when the independently-contracted delivery guy is too slow" seems quite challenging, people leave reviews for all kinds of random, unrelated reasons.

I would never make a bet on peoples inability to be idiots.


Especially so when the independently contracted delivery guy impersonates the restaurant. A reasonable person will assume that the website restaurant-xyz.com connects them to the restaurant xyz and if they place an order, they are placing an order with that restaurant, not an independent contractor.




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