branding fast food

It sounds like you are considering franchising your operation. if you have buyers then you need to make sure you have an effective franchising plan and a franchise contract that supports this plan, and that supports the future growth plans of your franchise.

Another thing you should do is think carefully about is what sort of intellectual property you own, and how you want to protect it. You may have trade secrets in your recipes. You will need to protect your trade secrets for them to remain valuable, and you may need contracts in order to do this (the franchise agreement for your franchisees, but also agreements to protect your secrets among your own internal employees, and the franchisees' employees). You may have copyright in the marketing materials that you produce, which can help prevent others from using your text.If you have a jingle or song, for example, then you might want to seek copyright protection for it. But the most valuable protection you are likely to seek for your franchise is trademark protection - you can have a common law trademark but this limits your remedies in the event of a violation of your trademark - you may want to file for trademark registration, because this allows you some additional remedies (including an award of attorneys' fees, which can be substantial) in the event you are successful in enforcing your trademark rights against another party.

One thing I do when I draft franchise agreements is I think about what can go wrong - anticipate the likely problems - and make sure that there are simple procedures for making things right (or for preventing those anticipated problems).