Craft beer is awesome, but a rising tide of craft beer trademark disputes is not nearly as awesome. With the happy proliferation of new breweries has come a little bit of a proliferation of trademark disputes over the names of beers and breweries. That’s enough to take the suds out of anyone’s brew. The good news is that there are ways to avoid the problem in the first place by carefully thinking through naming and trademark issues before they become a problem. (The ideas in this article also apply to any brand owner who wants to avoid problems, not just beer-makers.)
The taste of a good craft beer trademark.
Where Do Craft Beer Trademark Disputes Come From?
The reason I even decided to write an article about craft beer trademark disputes was because of an article I read about the legal spats that breweries are getting involved with due to the confusion of too many similar names:
Virtually every large city, notable landscape feature, creature and weather pattern of North America — as well as myriad other words, concepts and images — has been snapped up and trademarked as the name of either a brewery or a beer. For newcomers to the increasingly crowded industry of more than 3,000 breweries, finding names for beers, or even themselves, is increasingly hard to do without risking a legal fight.
Ultimately, the source of the problem appears to be the number of new entrants into the field, many of whom have the same ideas about naming. These trademark disputes are expensive and take resources away from making great beer.
How Do We Prevent Craft Beer Trademark Disputes?
We can prevent craft beer trademark disputes in the same way we prevent trademark disputes, generally. A good choice is to think carefully about the trademark issues before you settle on a name, put out a product, invest in marketing, etc.
The first step (but not nearly sufficient) would be to Google a name or brand that you are thinking of using to see if anyone else out there is using it. That’s an easy way to sort out the most basic problems.
The second step would be to speak with a trademark attorney about your proposed name to: make sure that it can get registered and that there is no similar name being used. Many people think that if they don’t find someone using the exact name they want, it’s safe. That’s not true – any name that is “confusingly similar” to another name could cause problems for everybody (also, keep in mind that “confusingly similar” is not a matter of opinion, but a legal conclusion – that means that this is a good thing to get legal advice about).
Finally, it’s important to know that even if someone hasn’t registered a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, they still might have rights just by virtue of using the name, or because they got a state trademark registration. My point here is that searching the trademark database will not be sufficient to find other users of a name.
Hope that helps brewers avoid craft beer trademark disputes. If you have specific questions about how your brewery can avoid these kinds of trademark problems, you can schedule a consultation easily. It costs a little bit, but not nearly as much as it costs to resolve a later dispute. Or if you have any general questions, you can email me at jon@counselforcreators.com.
Remember, I am a lawyer but I am not your lawyer until we have agreed to work together. I offer this as legal information, and it is not intended as a substitute for legal advice. If you have a legal issue – or think you have one – get in touch with a lawyer. (And there is a Craft Beer Attorney here in California.)
