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| American trademark law has many breweries squabbling over names, images, and logos. Images: Shutterstock |
Who would’ve thought having too many craft beers would be a
bad thing? But with more than 3000
breweries in the United States as of 2014, beer makers are running into an
unforeseen legal issue: all the good
names are taken.
Well, maybe not all. But the number of legal disputes in the
American beer market has increased, according to Candace Moon, “The Craft Beer
Attorney.” Based in San Diego, Moon
specializes in helping breweries deal with legal issues surrounding trademarked
names, images, and font styles.
"There
are only so many words and names that make sense with beer, so it's not
surprising that many people will come up with the same ideas," says
Moon. And the overlaps generally
don’t cause too much trouble…as long as the beers are sold by small breweries
in different regions.
Larger
companies encounter problems more regularly, with mixed results as far as legal
solutions go.
Avery
in Colorado and Russian River in California discovered they each had a beer
named Salvation, and the owners met at a Colorado beer festival to discuss
it. Vinnie Cilurzo, co-owner and
brewmaster at Russian River Brewing Company, and Adam Avery of Avery Brewing,
couldn’t decide who had originally coined the name. Instead of bringing legal action, they
decided to combine their beers to create a blend called Collaboration Not
Litigation.
Other
brands didn’t resolve things so amicably.
In July 2013, Lagunitas Brewing Company’s owner, Tony Magee, received a
cease-and-desist order from SweetWater Brewing Company in Atlanta which
demanded Lagunitas stop using the code “420” on their labels. Presumably this was to protect SweetWater’s
420 Extra Pale Ale, which they have been brewing since the 1990s. Though Magee did ultimately agree to the
demand, he first tweeted
a long series of snide remarks about the experience, calling SweetWater’s
co-founder Freddy Bensch “a dweeb” for not calling to resolve the conflict instead
of issuing the order.
Because
American trademark law puts breweries in the same category as wineries and
distilleries, it’s difficult for companies to come up with completely original
names. Despite kerfuffles here and
there, though, the general consensus seems to be to try to resolve these issues
without official legal action…at least for now.
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