Magic Hat Brewery Sues West Sixth Brewing, Claiming 6 Looks Too Much Like 9
from the mmmmm-beer dept
You may recall that years ago Anheuser-Busch applied for a trademark on the number 312, having bought out Goose Island Brewery, who had a beer by that name. The catch is that 312 is the area code for most of Chicago, where Goose Island was based, and that seems like a sort of funny thing to trademark. But, strange as that might seem, at least AB didn't then go around suing the pants off of anyone who used any further permutation of that number.In what's a first for me, Brig C. Mccoy shows me an instance where one brewery with a trademark on a single digit has sued another brewery over a completely different digit.
A lawsuit filed May 16 in U.S. District Court charged that West Sixth began selling beer, ale and brewpub services in 2012 using color, trademarks and designs "that closely resemble and are confusingly similar" to the designs used by Magic Hat for several years.And if you look at the side-by-side comparison picture, you can see exactly what they mean. After all, Magic Hat #9's logo is maroon, yellow and orange, with a trippy stylized number 9 and a star. The offending logo from West Sixth's amber ale is brown, tan and silver, with a non-stylized number 6 merged with a circle and a star. In other words, they're almost nothing freaking alike in any way.
West Sixth appears to agree.
"They're claiming that we intentionally copied their logo, and that has caused them "irreparable harm," enough that they're asking for not only damages but also all our profits up until this point (little do they know that well, as a startup company, there wasn't any, oops!)"
West Sixth logos were created by a professional design firm in Lexington called Cricket Press that has "a long history of fantastic and creative logo designs. ... Our logo contains neither a '#' nor a '9.'"The lack of a # is actually kind of key. As West Sixth points out on its own website, the trademark in question includes the "#" sign, so the fact that their beer doesn't have it is pretty damning by itself. But, even beyond that, the focus on different numbers is just ridiculous.
Look, within the confines of a beer can or bottle, there's only so much you can do with a logo. That said, here's a fun experiment you can do at home (assuming you're of legal drinking age). Find someone who has never tried either of the Magic Hat or West Sixth beers in question. Sit that person down at a table with a case of both beers in front of them. Ask them if they are under any illusions that the two brews are distinctly different because of the logo. When they say, "Of course not, you idiot, and why did you kidnap me from the Stop & Go?!?", ask them to slam one of each beers. Rinse, repeat. Exactly how many double-slammed-beers do you think this person would have to go through before they can't tell the difference between a 6 and a 9?
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Filed Under: 6, 9, beer, numbers, trademark
Companies: magic hat brewery, west sixth brewery
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Just as these lawsuits are intended to do.
Veoh, you may find yourself with company soon.
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Re:
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Drinking too much
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* as seen on Numberphile, I don't claim this pun as my own.
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Hendrix Foresaw This
I don't mind, I don't mind,
Alright, if all the hippies cut off all their hair,
I don't care, I don't care.
Dig, 'cos I got my own world to live through
And I ain't gonna copy you.
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Re: Hendrix Foresaw This
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Telling the difference after two slabs
But when it boils down to it, the only beer worth drinking is the one made with ... (not hops).
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Re: Telling the difference after two slabs
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Re: Telling the difference after two slabs
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Re: Telling the difference after two slabs
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is this proof of avg americans have rank 31 in world math scores?
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Pentium
I hate it when the rules change without notice. Like software patents, although that change helped me realize that patents are worthless to society anyway.
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Re: Pentium
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Re: Re: Pentium
Please refer to "Love Potions" for prior art.
Oh, wait, I pulled a Savage and mixed those up.
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Re: Pentium
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Re: Re: Pentium
IBM did manufacture 486 chips, however.
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Challenge Accepted!
My guess is that I will become bloated and sick before I can't tell the difference though. Beer is what I drink when it's time to start sobering up... ;)
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pretty sure...
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New name...
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_symbol
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Research
speclly wen the 6 it bning chugedd
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Three!
Three! The difference between a 6 and 9 is three. What does that have to do with trademarks?
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I'm confused
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Sheep... All of you. Sheep I tell you!
And if the one Brewery IS serious... This kind of crap shouldn't be "reported" unless some idiot judge makes the wrong call. They don't deserve the profit boost that this press will give them.
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Crap
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Re:
I've seen stuff in the grocery store that actually DOES look like it could confuse someone. A store-brand soup can that says "Chunky" on it using the same colors and a similar font and in the same location as Chunky's brand soup, for example. Sorry, but you wouldn't choose that style unless you were trying to mimic the brand name.
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Bullies
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Color blind author
Its a fairly bright green.
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Funny!
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Magic Hat's lawsuit
brewery sells out to a much bigger company who then gets paranoid and thinks everyone is after them and get the
lawyers involved. Is Magic Hat still just brewed in Vt still
with the new #9 cans ?
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