Craft brewers are running out of names for their brands
It’s a big worry: with over 3,000 breweries operating in the U.S., basically every large city, landscape feature, creature and weather pattern has been grabbed and trademarked as the name of either a brewery or a beer. For newcomers to the increasingly crowded industry, finding names for their beers, or even themselves, is becoming harder and harder without risking a legal fight.
Of course, no brewery will intentionally infringe upon another's trademarked name, image or font style. Yet, with tens of thousands of brands in the American beer market, it happens often. As there are only so many words and names to associate with beer, it’s not surprising that many people will come up with the same ideas. Doing research if your dreamed up name has already been taken by another brewer can be both time-consuming and costly.
Name overlaps may not matter if the beers are sold in different regions, but when two large breweries with broad distributions are involved, the matter often needs to be resolved by lawyers.
For example, one of the nation’s biggest craft brewers Lagunitas Brewing Co. sued its Californian rival Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. over alleged trademark infringement on its new Hop Hunter IPA label, but then quickly backed away in mid-January 2015 from a legal battle, media reported.
In his suit, Lagunitas’ owner Tony Magee argued Sierra Nevada’s design for its Hop Hunter India Pale Ale — which features “IPA” in large, bold, black capital letters — is too similar to the design for his Lagunitas IPA label. Heavens know what got into him to sue Sierra Nevada as, at first glance, the two labels look not similar at all and “IPA” is fundamentally a style description and not a brand.
Fortunately, a series of tweets posted on Mr Magee’s Twitter account suggest the suit would be dropped.
“Today was in the hands of the ultimate court; The Court of Public Opinion and in it I got an answer to my Question; Our IPA’s TM (trademark) has limits,” according to a tweet posted to Mr Magee’s account.
“Today I was seriously schooled & I heard you well,” another tweet declared.
Mr Magee founded Lagunitas in 1993 and is allegedly heavily involved in every aspect of the business, including designing all of Lagunitas’ labels and packaging himself.
The suit came as each brewery is engaged in a massive expansion to increase its national distribution. The craft market reportedly grew by 18 percent during the first six months of 2014, with Lagunitas opening a second plant in Chicago and Sierra Nevada starting a brewery near Asheville, North Carolina.
Sierra Nevada is the second-largest craft brewer in the U.U., while Lagunitas is ranked fifth.
