Bo Muller-Moore is tired of playing the waiting game. The man behind the hand-stenciled ?Eat More Kale? T-shirts?a Montpelier-based operation?said he never thought it would have taken the U.S. government 14 months to decide whether or not his three famous words would be patented. ?I was really geared up to hear something definitive and all I got was a wishy-washy ?no?,? Muller-Moore said in his signature Southern twang. ?It all feels so absurd.?On Monday, the U.S. Trademark and Patent office gave Muller-Moore a ?preliminary no? on his application to protect the phrase that has led to a two-year battle with restaurant chain Chick-fil-A, who came after the artist in 2011 on the grounds that ?Eat More Kale? was too similar to ?Eat Mor Chikin,? the Rutland Herald reported.For its part, Chick-fil-A issued a statement in 2011 stating that it had been aware of ?Eat More Kale? since 2006. It was only when Muller-Moore decided to trademark his slogan that the restaurant chain decided to ?legally defend and protect? its slogan to maintain its rights, the statement read. But Muller-Moore said comparing the two slogans is not even a case of apples to oranges, but ?apples to beavers.??It?s as simple as this,? he said. ?If I were opening a restaurant selling vegetarian food, I would agree with their claim that the slogans are too confusing to customers and mine would be stealing their thunder. But we?re not in the same business.?The Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A chain is worth about $3.5 billion and operates about 1,500 locations across the country, according to a 2011 Burlington Free Press article. The roots of ?Eat More Kale? are slightly more humble.Muller-Moore, who said in a 2012 TEDtalk video that he came to Vermont from Alabama because he was ?impressed by the creative, do-it-yourself nature? of the state, began stenciling his ?Eat More Kale? slogan in 2001 at the behest of a farmer friend who wanted a few T-shirts made for a farmers market during a good kale crop season. But the phrase caught on virtually overnight, causing Muller-Moore to eventually print it on T-shirts, stickers and other merchandise. ?I had people coming up to me saying ?I love kale, this is the greatest T shirt of all time?!? Muller-Moore said in the video. ?And then I had other folks saying ?I hate kale, this is the greatest T shirt of all time!? It seemed to be a win-win.?Social media, also discussed in the video, has been an important factor for growing the ?Eat More Kale? brand? an aspect of the business Muller-Moore said he was first skeptical about but has now grown to embrace.Now the ?Eat More Kale? purveyor has taken to Facebook to bolster support for his legal campaign against Chick-fil-A. The page, which bears 3,801 likes, features a timeline photo of a sunglass-sporting Muller-Moore posing in front of a Chick-fil-A storefront.?Chick-fil-A is trying to put one Vermonter out of business for using the phrase ?Eat More Kale?,? the page description states. ?They need to be stopped! Support Bo Muller-Moore.?But despite its small business success, ?Eat More Kale? lags far behind Chick-fil-A in profit and scope, and Muller-Moore said without protection from the U.S. government he will never be able to sell his business. ?No one?s becoming rich over here,? he said. Muller-Moore and his wife make their living off of being foster parents. As it stands, he said he has six months to the respond to the ruling. Because the preliminary ruling does not affect the civil court process, where Chick-fil-A has waged its legal battle, ?Eat More Kale? can remain in production unless the company decides to pursue the cease-and-desist order. In that case, he said he would have to prove in court that his slogan is different from Chick-fil-A?s and that no customer would ever confuse the two. But the initial reason why Muller-Moore sought protection for his slogan was because he was fighting off imposters of his own. No fewer than nine T-shirt makers have attempted to replicate his design, the Rutland Herald reported.?I?m going to keep printing shirts,? he said. ?This just makes it difficult to fight off copy cats.?