(CNN) -- IHOP has filed a lawsuit against a church group called the International House of Prayer claiming that the group is illegally using the pancake house's famous acronym.
The legal flap started earlier this month when the International House of Pancakes filed the lawsuit in a federal court in California.
The Kansas City, Missouri-based church group "selected and adopted the International House of Prayer name, knowing it would be abbreviated IHOP. IHOP-KC intended to misappropriate the fame and notoriety of the household name IHOP to help promote and make recognizable their religious organization," the lawsuit says.
Lawyers from the pancake restaurant say the odds are stacked against the church group and provided the court with pages and pages of documentation of websites, newsletters and signs on buildings where the prayer group allegedly used the IHOP acronym.
The use of the acronym infringes on the restaurant's trademark, the restaurant contends.
So, IHOP, the pancake house, is asking a judge to get IHOP, the church group, to stop using the letters IHOP.
The restaurant says it has used the acronym for more than 30 years
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JMC Ministries Response
Written By: Miranda Caverley
To be quite Honest we are not surprised that IHop (pancakes) Is sueing IHop (prayer) We follow the International House of Prayer and I commented once saying, "I just don't see how they can use IHOP when the Pancake Restaurant is using it as well. I bet there will be a lawsuit in the near future." We ourselves have seen other ministries have to either shut down a website or even a facebook group because they used the name of someone elses already existing business or organization.
We hope that IHOP and IHOP can get this worked out as easily as possible and they both can continue in their work, one feeding the body and one feeding the soul.
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