Shipyard Brewing Sues The Brewery It Is Trademark Bullying Over The Public Backlash To Its Trademark Bullying

from the bullies-squared dept

You may recall that the middle of last summer saw us reporting on a somewhat odd trademark dispute between two breweries, Shipyard Brewing Co. and Logboat Brewing Company. Chiefly at issue was the fact that both breweries used images of schooners on their respective labels, except that the images used were laughably different. Also at issue was that Logboat's "Shiphead" beer used the word "head", which Shipyard says it uses in a variety of other beers, such as Pumpkinhead, Melonhead and other variations. Shipyard, notably, does not have a beer called "Shiphead", making this all the more eyebrow-raising.

Well, after we and others reported on this silly lawsuit, it seems that many within the craft beer fanship and community, a passionate group to be sure, felt a desire to let Shipyard Brewing know what they thought of this behavior. This is a common result when passionate fanbases get wind of bad actions taken within an industry. Despite that, Shipyard had apparently decided that all of this backlash was the fault of Logboat Brewing, and added a defamation charge to its lawsuit.

The Maine craft brewery’s complaint alleged that the hundreds of one-star reviews as well as negative news articles were prompted by Logboat employees, who made defamatory statements concerning Shipyard to the public “as retribution for Shipyard filing suit.” The brewery listed three examples of statements it considered to be defamatory:

-Suggestions that Shipyard is pursuing the trademark lawsuit for ulterior motives

-Unsubstantiated claims that Shipyard is a trademark bully

-General insults concerning Shipyard’s business and the quality of its beers

Well, the judge presiding over all of this has issued a ruling on that portion of this dispute, roundly rejecting the latter two of those three claims by Shipyard because they are matters or expressions of opinion. She went on to say that the claim of ulterior motive is something that could be proved in court and allowed Shipyard to amend its filing accordingly.

U.S. District Court Judge Nanette Laughrey dismissed parts of a defamation claim against Logboat that alleged the craft brewery’s employees slandered Maine-based Shipyard Brewing Company in retaliation for a lawsuit filed in May.

It's not a good first look for Shipyard and it's worth remembering that all of this consternation is in the service of a trademark lawsuit that is wholly unnecessary and one that is almost certainly itself tarnishing the reputation of the brewery in the eyes of the craft beer consuming public. It's probably time for Shipyard to cut both anchor and its losses.

Filed Under: trademark
Companies: longboat brewing, shipyard brewing

Brewery Sues Competitor Over Schooner Logos And Use Of The Word 'Head'

from the come-sail-away dept

Another day, another sigh-inducing trademark dispute in the craft beer industry. As we've discussed for some time now, the beer industry has a massive problem on its hands in the form of a deluge of trademark disputes between competitors. This has largely been the result of a huge uptick in craft brewers opening new businesses saddled alongside the tradition of creatively naming different beers and the limitations of the English language. Sometimes, however, you get a good old fashioned trademark dispute where one side is simply claiming similarities so tenuous as to be laughable.

Introducing Shipyard Brewing Co., which is suing Logboat Brewing Company claiming that because the latter both uses an image of a schooner on its label for its Shiphead beer brand and because the name of the beer includes the word "head" at all, that its a trademark violation. Let's deal with each in order, mostly because simply putting the beer labels side by side should allow us to take the schooner portion of the claim off the list of things we'll take seriously quite easily.

Do both labels use the image of a schooner? Yup! Are those uses, or the labels themselves, even remotely similar? Hell no! Shipyard's label is a picture of a schooner on the water, whereas Logboat's label is dominated by an image of a woman with a schooner for a head. You know, "shiphead." The beer labels themselves aren't remotely similar so as to rise to the level of trademark infringement.

Which Shipyard likely realizes, which is why they're lacing this trademark suit with the following claims: its the combination of the label and Logboat's use of the word "head" and the name it gave its outdoor seating area near the brewery that creates the customer confusion.

Shipyard further owns and has used other trademarks that contain the term HEAD as a suffix in relation to its beers, including, but not limited to, PUMPKINHEAD, MELONHEAD, and APPLEHEAD. Shipyard’s family of SHIPYARD, SHIP, and HEAD marks (collectively “Shipyard’s Trademarks”) all were in use and/or registered prior to Logboat’s earliest priority date of February 20, 2014.

The suit goes on to note that Logboat refers to its outdoor eating area as "the shipyard", which, yeah, the brewery has a boating theme. But with all of the examples of "ship" and "head" related trademarks owned by Shipyard, what the company chiefly demonstrates is that it does not have a trademark registered for "shiphead." The owner of that mark is Logboat, actually, which was registered in 2014 at which time no opposition was raised against it by Shipyard or anyone else. Logboat took to social media to explain:

“Logboat’s Shiphead Ginger Wheat trademark was registered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office following examination by a trademark examiner,” the statement said, “and successfully passed though the public opposition phase. Logboat’s mark was never challenged during the registration process as being likely to cause confusion with the trademark of any other party.”

What Shipyard is trying to do is string two or three tenuous trademark issues together and weave it into a valid trademark lawsuit. It's very unlikely to work, however, given how dissimilar the logos and marks are.

Filed Under: beer, head, schooners, shiphead, shipyard, trademark
Companies: logboat brewing, shipyard brewing