I see what they did there

I didn't realize what you were talking about until someone said Goose Island.

Honestly I don't know that it is an attempt to poke the bear. Besides, who would want their beer to be mistaken for G. I.?

 

I'd say Ellicottville has some pretty big "Stones" for doing this but that could open them up to even more litigation.

 

Monster stretch, it went over my head so it'll be completely over 95% of the beer community. Goose Island who?

 

My only thought was it might be something from Hawaii.

 

Even at a 3D look it still doesn't register, I'm going to guess a judge might not connect those dots. Seems a bit silly IMO.

 

I'm glad someone was willing to ask what the fuck OP was getting at with this thread. Because it was not apparent in the slightest. And I'm someone who enjoys a rousing trademark discussion.

The accusations of frivolous trademark claims are often levied on these types of thread because Beer Advocate #1,294 doesn't think those two labels look the same and therefore no reasonable person would confuse the two marks. But since trademark law is structured such that companies can lose a trademark that they don't protect, they are in a tough position. Cast a wide net and protect anything that their lawyers believe could be construed as infringing, or cast a narrower net and hope they don't get burned. This can incentivize being more broad in deciding what situations constitute infringement because of the amount of money and brand equity that goes into developing, establishing and maintaining a consumer brand.

But this... I'm stupefied by the fact that anyone was even able to pick up on OP's point.

 

I am happy to hear that I was not alone.

 

Yup kinda surprised about that one, I hear they're easily confused. Might be too late now

 

I feel like I practically am alone, with my association being immediate. Is this a little like the black and blue vs white and gold dress?

 

I didn't get it at first either. But I really don't see this as being notably more of a stretch than some others that have been posted which incite repeated explanations about how companies have to vigorously protect their trademarks.

It often seemed to me that people were saying there was essentially no infringement too small to be worth at least a cursory fuss being made since precedent is apparently everything. If this is indeed finally something that is clearly too small then I guess it's good to know there's a line.

 

It was definitely below the threshold for me, and I am one who will proclaim "protect the brand" at the drop of a hat (see branded growler thread). This seems an epic stretch, but who knows?

 

What could possibly be the infringement? OP is just random musings from a beverage center. There's no word goose, no picture of a goose, no bourbon, no county, no stout, no nothing. Many, many other brewers use the word "island" and even have it as part of their brewery name. What exactly is the issue?

 

I'm not sure why you're so worked up. I simply said that the potential similarity of Island Gose to Goose Island doesn't seem that much different to me than some of the other examples that have been posted here which also arguably seemed like a stretch.

You're free to think whatever you like.

 

"The poking of bears" comes under the aegis of many a department of whim.

 

You are being way too literal. That's not how these things work. Trademark infringement can happen (in the eyes of the law) if two things sound alike or look alike. We're not talking about an intentional bootleg. The question is if an average consumer (not a beer nerd) who doesn't remember the names of beer brands EXACTLY can look at "Island Gose" and possibly mistake it for "Goose Island." The words are one letter apart and the word order is swapped. Trademark infringement can get a lot looser than that. You don't have to agree that it's infringement, but if you can't "possibly" see ANY connection between those two labels then you're intentionally putting the blinders on to any other POV.

 

Exactly this, plus there's no limit on how confused an average consumer in a hurry can get. We have pages of rules on how to use our product names even in internal documents. It's why when most of us in engineering talk to the outside world we try not to mention products by name - the sales guys do but us dummies in the technical world avoid product names like the plague. At one point, somebody had written Word macro functions for the proper use of each product name - like we could remember those any better. If a word or series of words becomes "commonly used", then any trademark we have could become null and void - I don't know much about it by intent, but that phrase I do remember. The point of this pathetically weak supporting example, while different, is that it's a lot more imprecise than most people would think.

 

All I'm saying is there's nothing here. This thread is as far as it's going, although I can see so many of you wish that this was something.

 

I think you're misinterpreting the intent behind people's posts. I'm fairly certain nobody really wishes there was anything - one way or the other. But these trademark coversations pop up fairly often on this site and going back and forth about the vagaries of how trademark law is conducted and enforced is something of a past time here.

The only sense in which anyone ever 'roots' for one outcome or the other is when some people get the sense that a powerful company is needlessly bullying a smaller one. But since there's not even any proposed action yet in this example then there's no rooting interest either way. It's a purely academic discussion.

Very unlike most of the important real world business we're usually hashing out here

 

My first thought is that someone was gonna say they were ripping off the margaritaville food and drink branding with the imagery.

 

I'm marketing a new beer and naming it Enefel Draft.