Renegade threatened by Sixpoint

It's open season for lawyers. So much for the happy community we once knew.

 

Wish they would have gone through a mediator Going through a lawyer is too impersonal and stale and "strong".

 

Was picked up by Westword too
http://blogs.westword.com/cafesociety/2013/02/renegade_brewing_changes_the_n.php

 

Yea, it's spelled different and the can looks different, and one says Renegade on it, the other says Sixpoint on it. You'd have to be a moron to get confused, particularly since they aren't distributed anywhere that overlap. It's not like a company cloned the Sixpoint Righteous can and changed it to S1xpoint Ryeteous and distributed in the same market, which I believe what the trademark law was intended to be for.

 

How can you get confused if you never see them side by side on the shelf?

 

True.

Upon which I would then likely expect to see a trademark infringement cease & desist. But "intent" or "future" expansion is (to me) not a good enough reason. It would actually have to be competing and therefore infringing upon their marketability.

 

What about Sublimely Self-Righteous? Not close enough?

 

I understand where both are coming from. I wish more upstarts would do their due diligence with branding and while the RR/Avery story is nice, I'm not so sure I'd expect something like that in every instance either. While things with Strange and (especially) Dry Dock were a little questionable, this one really does seem like a pretty large oversight, IMO.
That said, I'm shocked there aren't more people actually picking up the phone or shooting over an e-mail to try and sort things out first. I'm curious if that did happen or if there's another side to this.

 

You wouldn't confuse them...if you knew what you were looking for. Someone looking to try either for the first time might not be as well-versed in can art.

 

Yea, I agree, my guess is a lot of breweries just don't do the research and/or apply for trademarks due to the added cost. I imagine had Renegade applied for a trademark it would have been denied, if what dbrauneis is saying is true. They also have a beer called Elevation which would seem to infringe on a couple other trademarks, if the other beers are actually trademarked (no idea how common it is to trademark a beer)

I guess I originally thought that the trademark infringement had to prove it was competing against the original product and/or had to show it was imitating it, if all it is, is a protection of a name in a similar product, then they have a case.

 

Yeah, I think people forget that our industry is just that, an industry. While we all get along and collaborate, we still have a right and a duty to protect our image and branding.

 

Great point.

Looks like Righteous Ale has been trademarked since 3/2011