from the big-deal dept
I’ve to confess, the quantity of trademark dispute tales within the brewing industry I’ve accomplished over the course of those a few years right here at Techdirt have surprisingly slowed down the previous few years. I’m undecided if it is a perform of the slowdown in business progress within the craft brewing business, market consolidation that possible occurred throughout COVID, or only a larger consciousness of trademark dangers on account of the earlier explosion of disputes, nevertheless it’s positively down.
However that doesn’t imply they’ve disappeared fully. Earlier this 12 months, No-Li Brewhouse sued Redhook Brewery in Seattle for infringing its trademark with its “Large Juicy Ballard” model (submitting embedded under). Powering its lawsuit was No-Li’s trademarked time period “Large Juicy,” which the USPTO really made an incontestable mark in 2023. Now, as is typical for me, I lay the blame for this on the toes of the USPTO. In spite of everything, “juicy” is a ubiquitous time period within the craft brewing business, that means that apparently the differentiator that made the mark fanciful and a supply identifier was merely its pairing with “large,” an clearly generic time period. There may be zero likelihood a sound beer trademark may very well be registered for “juicy,” however by some means “large juicy” is legitimate and incontestable? Cool.
Nicely, as a result of this type of trademark bullying works, Redhook Brewery has settled the go well with with No-Li.
The case was dismissed on Wednesday as a result of the events had settled on an settlement, court docket data present.
No-Li lawyer Mark Hendricksen stated he isn’t at liberty to reveal particulars of the confidential settlement.
Whereas the complete phrases of the settlement should not public, in fact, we do know that Redhook has agreed to a reputation change. Nicely, of kinds, anyway.
Redhook’s web site, nevertheless, exhibits its beer in query seems to have gone from Redhook’s “Large Juicy Ballard” beer to “Juicy Large Ballard.”
The results of the go well with permits No-Li to maintain its trademark and in addition led to a rebrand alongside the strains of what Redhook wished. That they had an present trademark for Large Ballard, so “I believe this was a particular approach for them to return to their emblem and use ‘Juicy’ in a descriptive approach,” Hendricksen wrote in an e mail Friday.
The truth that’s passable to No-Li solely highlights simply how foolish and petty this all is. The change in title is insignificant to the purpose of absurdity. I can promise you that it’ll have completely zero impact on public confusion or lack thereof with regards to differentiating these two manufacturers. That is pure pint-of-blood stuff.
However once more, to our mates on the USPTO… why? Why can we not merely apply just a bit extra scrutiny to those business particular purposes for emblems that use generic mixtures of phrases? Why should our authorized system be clogged up worse than an alcoholic’s arteries purely due to your incapacity to do your jobs?
Filed Underneath: beer, big juicy, juicy big, trademark
Corporations: no-li brewhouse, redhook brewery
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