Craft beer and trademark theft.

A local brewery by me put out a beer called Drank Aaron, complete with an image of The Hammer, even wearing a Braves cap.

 

A little local brewery doing a one-off isn’t worth litigation, but if something with national distribution (like the Stone thing) is a different story.,.

 

True enough, but why do Torches and Pitchforks Nation FaceTwit mobs but find these acceptable, or even laudable, in the craft brewing culture?

 

Well, to state the obvious it shouldn't be OK.

I wonder if this 'borrowing' of trademarks is an issue that the Brewers Association would want to address industry wide?

Cheers!

@JuliaLauren

 

I can't help but think it amounts to ironic pandering-based-marketing for those who recognize the original label, with the idea being that the person recognizing the reference will shell out the money for the product, making them feel like they are in the know. Here's a Swedish example from a Swedish craft brewery, the target audience of which has to be pretty small:

 

This has been the case for a long, long time in the industry lol

 

The OP said it was not new:

Since you ended with "lol", I'm wondering; What about this do you find to be funny?

 

just an offhand comment! I find it funny that people are still pointing this kind of thing out (though I 100% support them doing so). it's tacky and a poor aesthetic decision, even if I don't have much sympathy for the brands they rip off, generally.

 

These are clear references/parodies and the chances of a consumer mistaking these products for the products they parodied is effectively non-existant unless you were to line them up side by side on the same shelf and intentionally blend them in. I'm all for it given that the imagery of these older domestic brews are so prolific that they might as well be public domain.

 

This is bullshit . How dare they!

 

It seems like a simple Cease & Desist letter would stop these offenders quickly, especially if the return address on the envelope is from a law firm. But then maybe a trademark has to be in place for this to occur?

 

At risk of claiming "expertise," a fair percentage of my law practice is IP-related including trademarks.

When I started practicing law years ago, a sternly-worded demand letter (IP-related or otherwise) would often produce a desired result. That isn't the case nearly as often anymore. People are more jaded and indifferent, because they've figured out that sometimes that's the only letter they are ever going to get.

In addition, my general observation is that most small or medium sized craft brewers don't invest much in federal trademark registrations or in policing infringement. A party doesn't have to have a federal registration to sue for infringement, but a registration affords significant advantages. In short, Stone is the exception, not the rule.

 

From:

 

Um, so the stronger and more valuable the brand, the more it deserves to be stripped of its value in your eyes? I wonder how that will turn out. I don't think this has as much to do with consumer confusion and parody (even tough they are part of the situation) as it does one business improperly leveraging the brand of another business to increase their sales through association.

Tell that to The Hershey Company.

 

I stay far away from these blatent trademark ripoffs, only because the quality of the beer inside seems to be inversely proportional to the intentional hype a brewery needs to use through another company's IP!

 

To be fair to Hershey, those guys just used their logo and name on a beer. No hint of parody.

 

Adding one more here from the Heavy Reel Brewing Company (NJ). I mean come on. It's a good beer too.

 

Consumer confusion is not the only source of liability under federal trademark law. "Famous" brands can also be subject to "dilution" or "tarnishing" via the kinds of "hijacking" described above. Sort of like "McDowell's" and its "Big Mick" from "Coming to America." People aren't going to be confused, but it's still problematic and still "hitching a ride" on someone else's brand.

 

To be serious, I can have a nuanced reaction to the various types of piggybacking, but for the most part, such actions from craft breweries are usually a turn off for me and I think the wake-up call (such as what came from Hershey) is long overdue. On these forums, I tend to call out brewers for poor marketing in multiple forms. In a different thread, I did so with the Barncat ESB seen in this OP. I love parody as a concept, but parody and homage sometimes feel like shallow justifications to hide behind in cases that read like bad theft more than good parody. There would be no surprise if the brewer of the Pilsner two posts above claimed that it's a homage... but my reaction would be to leave the "homage" on the shelf.