Waffle House also has an interesting history with trademark protection and dilution. The company started and expanded when trademark protection involved more per-US State registries than it does today. In Indiana for a couple decades the Waffle Houses there were known as Waffle & Steak, because a home-grown Indiana company was already known as Waffle House there. Sure, Waffle House does serve Steak (though many don't realize and wouldn't think of Waffle House as the first place to go for a Steak), but it wasn't about marketing their non-Breakfast menu items (they have burgers, too!), they wanted to protect their trademarks on the signs and other parts of their branding, even in states like Indiana. Steak has 5 letters like House, that was the important part. The signs looked clearly enough alike from the interstate even if the words were different.