You Can't Turn Bicycles Into Wine: Trek Bicycle's Trademark Lawsuit Against Trek Winery Dismissed

from the drink-up dept

Fri, Mar 5th 2010 12:34pm — Mike Masnick

We keep seeing cases where companies think that a trademark gives them a total monopoly over the trademark. That, of course, is not true. Not only is a trademark only supposed to be limited to cases of confusion or (in more recent construction) dilution, it's also only supposed to be applied in areas of commerce that compete. In other words, it's perfectly fine to use the same mark in totally different business areas. But, of course, some companies simply refuse to believe that (Monster Cable is famous for ignoring this, for example). But, thankfully, judges are quite aware of this. Brian points out that a judge has dismissed a trademark lawsuit brought by Trek Bicycle Corp. (makers of, you guessed it, bicycles) against a small northern California winery called Trek Winery. In this case, the lawsuit was dismissed for jurisdictional problems, in that the case was brought in Wisconsin (where the bicycle company is based), despite the vast majority of the winery's business being in California. But, still, the judge questioned whether or not there could actually be any confusion at all in Wisconsin. Apparently, the bicycle company cited three orders to Wisconsin -- two of the orders went to relatives of the winery's owners and one order went to a spouse of an employee of the bike company (and that single order was just a test to confirm that the winery would deliver to Wisconsin). Those are hardly quantities that would threaten the bike company's business.

Of course, this does mean that a lawsuit could be filed again in Northern California, but again, you have to wonder who's confusing a bicycle with a bottle of wine? Separately, another article on the lawsuit notes that the producers of Star Trek were originally concerned about the wine, but eventually decided it wasn't worth pursuing.

Filed Under: bicycles, jurisdiction, trademark, trek, wine
Companies: trek

20 Comments

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Jennifer, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:01pm

Trek
Trek isnt a common word so I see their point of view.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:03pm

Who cares? Do they have and sell T-Shirts? What's that? A resounding "Yes?"

Techdirt -1 Trek +1
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:14pm

Re:
I agree. It's always good to find a company that can deliver, without FTC intervention, what is on a website's homepage. It's sad that we even have to think about wasting bureaucrats time with researching false and erroneous claims such as "a multitude" of T-Shirts may be available for jerks that subsidize ongoing business operations of content providers which they enjoy.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:22pm

Re: Re:
Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you also make all these paying jerks have their comments moderated?

That will show 'em for being a sucker!
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Coco Was Screwed, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:38pm

Re: Trek
WTF, it means long journey, how is it not a "common" word? Just because you have a limited vocabulary doesn't mean the rest of the world does...
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Dark Helmet (profile), 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:39pm

Re: Re: Re:
The owl flies at moonlight?
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DS, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:45pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
The black dog runs at night.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:47pm

Re: Re: Trek
Uh, "sarcasm" is a common word too. You might want to look it up...
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william (profile), 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
this is one of the most confusing thread I've read so far...

@_@
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:58pm

Trek is a common word
a journey or trip, esp. one involving difficulty or hardship
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Alan Gerow (profile), 5 Mar 2010 @ 2:40pm

Re: Re: Re: Trek
Yeah, but how to successfully use sarcasm is not so common.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 5 Mar 2010 @ 2:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
All your comprehension are belong to us....
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 3:30pm

"You Can't Turn Bicycles Into Wine"

What if you set them out long enough to ferment? Will they then turn into alcohol?
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bob, 5 Mar 2010 @ 3:41pm

Oh No
As long as there are no red shirts in the bicycle ads I don't see that it would have any problems either.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 5:48pm

Re:
My hovercraft is full of ells
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 5:55pm

I don't get what they're wining about.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2010 @ 9:46am

Re: You Can't Turn Bicycles Into Wine
Betcha Jesus could.
He has a trek ... uh ... track record of such things
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anon91803 (profile), 6 Mar 2010 @ 11:18am

Thanks for the head's up!
Hi, Mike, thanks for the post. I enjoy your blog and appreciate your work.

My current Trek bike is no longer meeting my needs so when I replace it I will be buying from someone else now.

And, I will now try Trek wines if I see them.

Using lawsuits to bully businesses with coincidentally similar names is short sighted.

If Trek Bikes wants to pay the winery the same amount they sued the Trek Winery for I might reconsider.

Keep up the good work!
Mr. A Non
LA, CA, USA
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2010 @ 1:05pm

Re: Re: You Can't Turn Bicycles Into Wine
I think I missed that story in the bible.
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Andy Podshadley, 8 Mar 2010 @ 1:14pm

Trek vs. Trek Wine
Hello Mr. A Non,

Thank you for the post. We are going to be in Southern CA the week of the 14th for the Family Winemakers Tasting (Anaheim and San Diego). Stop by and try Trek Wines.

Thank you ll who supports the outcome. We cannot understand the correlation of Bikes and Wine.

Andy Podshadley
Trek Wine
www.trekwine.com
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