Cerveceria Costa Rica (Magic Hat) Suing West Sixth Brewing

west st logo, looks like pac man swallowing a pellet!

 

Shhhhh. Atari needs money these days. Don't give them any ideas.

 

After thinking about this for a number of hours, I can see magic hat's point of view. I had never noticed their star in the center of the 9 until now, but the shape of the number and the star are very similar.

If they are being honest and they tried to work with the small brewery for 6 months or a year or whatever, then yeah, they do have a legal obligation to protect their trademark.

I'm not going to look it up, but I think there was an article in BA magazine 2 issues ago where the writer postulated that the end of the touchy feely craft era was over, and this might be one of the opening shots.

 

I was going to read the rest of this thread but you have already won, good sir.

 

If only there was some huge event coming up where a statement could be made! How strongly do people feel about this, should the Bros tell Magic Hat they aren't welcome at the ACBF,should they be asked not to bring #9?
Should that be repeated at every beer test through summer. Perhaps a strong showing of repulsion for bullying would convince them that this is a marketing fiasco.

 

Jimi said "Well if a 6 turned out to be 9, I don't mind." Anyway, it ain't like either of them are really taking the world by storm. How very...uhm...modern industrial.

 

No, it's about integrity, and it's about jobs. Yeah, yeah corporate profit...blah blah, but it comes down to keeping people employed. Too many in this thread have tried to cloud the issue around the beer and it's quality, this has nothing to do with beer. It has to do with property. You don't steal the property of others, or at best confuse people into thnking your product is the product of a competitor. I've thought this over some more since last night, and if MH did try in good faith to hash this out and West 6th didn't budge, then they may well deserve a good old fashioned lawsuit.
Again, West 6th...you hired an inferior, uncreative, lousy designer/design firm, and they should be fired immediately and forced to go back to art school.

 

I never drank Magic Hat beers anyway, except to try a single in a mix six once or twice, which didn't impress me.

So now I'm going to increase the amount I don't drink! Take that, Magic Hat!

 

Do they have any proof that anyone thinks that?

I asked a group last night, and the only person who thought the label was confusing was a teetotaler. So he isnt in the target demographic at all.

 

As Magic Hat hasnt been considered "craft" by the Brewers Association for a few years now, Im not sure this qualifies as an opening shot. This is international macrobrewer vs craft. Admittedly a smaller international macrobrewer than ABI or SABMiller or MolsonCoors, but still the same category.

 

West 6th went from 0 bbls brewed in 2011 to 1938 bbls in 2012.

It isnt the largest debut ever (Finch topped it in 2011, for one example off the top of my head), but its a pretty decent first year. And here in KY, they went from nonexistent to on shelfs everywhere in a hurry.

It was reasonably stormy.

 

Disagree.

Im not a fan of the design, but I still dont see how it rips off #9 at all. Its fucking hard to put a 6 on a logo that doesnt look like an upsidedown 9. And I dont think anyone should try that hard to make a "unique" six.

Honestly*, I think Magic Hat ripped off the University of Alabama logo, which has a 10** instead of 9 in the middle.

*not really
**A is 10 in hexadecimal

 

Yeah, from my limited understanding after talking to a friend of mine who is a copyright attorney, this is the part most people don't understand. If you don't even attempt to protect your trademark, you then can't do so in the future (at least successfully).

 

You are correct, it's an important precedent for Magic Hat to set.

 

So what is their excuse for threatening Georgetown with litigation over Nine Pound Porter? Did some tavern owner have an unoriginal, inferior idea for naming his tavern and he should have it taken away and forced to be a janitor? How the hell does Magic Hat own the rights to a Number?

They've gone down this road before and are douche canoes for it.

 

They could be called common elements but to use them all in the same design is quite a coincidence. I've been a graphic designer for 10+ years and never even used a start that looked like that.

 

Because we look at beer cans upside down?

 

They arent even really the same usage, as the 6 is part of the circle, while the 9 is inside the circle. So only one is a circle around a numeral. The other is a numeral integrated into a circle.

And why hasnt Magic Hat sued Major League Baseball? The circle around the number is very common usage.

 

First off, I think it's important to note that the first letter to West Sixth was in September of 2012. It seems like Magic Hat has been willing to negotiate in good faith and West Sixth has decided to start crying about the big mean brewery 9 months later. Doesn't impress me.

I think a lot of people here seem to be busy with hating on Magic Hat and actually ignoring the real issues at hand. No court or businessperson cares whether West Sixth IPA is great (it happens to be) or whether Magic Hat #9 sucks (also true). Magic Hat has posted what appears to be all of the letters between their lawyers and West Sixth here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/142860493/Magic-Hat-Brewing-and-West-Sixth-Brewing

Reading through those letters, it seems like Magic Hat is being as reasonable as they can possibly be and that West Sixth were going to make some changes. I suppose it's possible that sometime between the last letter and now Magic Hat demanded the brewer's firstborn, but everything I'm reading above seems pretty reasonable and relatively amicable (as far as legal matters go). At this point, while I enjoy West Sixth IPA, I think that it's pretty rotten that they decided to just take it to the streets and start screaming "damn the man, save West Sixth" in what appears to be a weak effort to intimidate Magic Hat (hint: It probably isn't and won't work). The big objection raised by Magic Hat are the scenarios (and they included examples) of where just the West 6th logo was used without the words "West Sixth" and that was what they objected to. From Magic Hat's lawyers: "Magic Hat requests that West Sixth agree to use its 6 logo consistantly with the words WEST SIXTH BREWING."


There's another thing that apparently people here don't realize, to keep a trademark you have to affirmatively defend it. If another beer came out that was a dead rip-off of Magic Hat #9, a possible defense in court could be that Magic Hat let this West Sixth beer infringe on its trademark.

At this point, I'm not buying any more Magic Hat than I already was (none) but I am going to stop buying West Sixth as well because I firmly believe West Sixth was in the wrong by making this issue public and not settling this matter within Magic Hat's very reasonable requests.