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

from the drink-up dept

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


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  • identicon
    Jennifer, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:01pm

    Trek

    Trek isnt a common word so I see their point of view.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      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...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      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.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 5:48pm

      Re:

      My hovercraft is full of ells

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 1:58pm

    Trek is a common word

    a journey or trip, esp. one involving difficulty or hardship

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      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

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        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.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2010 @ 5:55pm

    I don't get what they're wining about.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    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

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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