Hospitality Industry Group Pushes Back On Portland's Attempt To Trademark Bully A Local Brewery

from the all-together-now dept

Just a quick update from Portland, Oregon, folks. After the city engaged in some truly impish behavior by trying to bully aside a local brewery that has a trademark on Portland's iconic jumping-deer sign, there have been no further negotiations on a resolution between the two sides. See, the city of Portland really wants to license the trademark for the image of the sign to national and international macrobrewers, whereas Old Town Brewing just wants to have the same trademark rights it has legally held for that image in the alcohol industries since 2012. You might have thought that a refusal of the mark by the USPTO would have ended this story. You would be wrong.

Apparently, the city has filed multiple trademark applications in the hopes that something, anything, will get approved. This is according to a Portland hospitality industry group, which has taken notice of the city's actions and is firing off angry letters to its own mayor as a result.

The Old Town Hospitality Group, which counts 25-plus restaurants and taverns, said in a letter to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler that the city is "wasting taxpayer money." The issue relates to a trademark held by Old Town Brewing on the "leaping deer" logo, which adorns the "Portland Oregon" sign above the Burnside Bridge.

The Old Town Hospitality Group called on the city "to stop filing trademark application after trademark application for an image that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has repeatedly determined is confusing. Tell the city’s attorneys that it is wrong and an abuse of power to attempt to bury Old Town Pizza & Brewing in legal fees."

It's worth repeating that Old Town Brewing is in Portland. Its patrons, and likely its owners, are constituents of the very city actively trying to pretend its trademark doesn't exist while burying the tax-paying business in legal fees for no legitimate reason. Simply wanting really badly to license a trademark it doesn't own doesn't justify the city's actions. And, now that it's not just the brewery pushing back, but an industry group of member companies along with it, it might just be a matter of time before enough of the regular public gets wind of this and City Hall has a very real problem on its hands.

Or it could stop harrassing a local business, I suppose, but that seems like an awful lot to ask.

Filed Under: portland, trademark
Companies: old town brewing

City Of Portland Still Jerking Around Local Businesses Over Trademark Of Famous City Sign

from the trademarkia dept

The last time we checked in with the city of Portland, it was attempting to navigate some perilous waters regarding a trademark the city has on a famous city sign. Beer-maker Pabst, which I am to understand somehow won a blue ribbon a long time ago, built a logo for a concert series it wanted to promote in Portland that served as an homage to the famous sign, which includes an outline of the state and a stag leaping across the top of it. Because of this, the city saw fit to send a cease and desist notice to Pabst, despite beer not generally being a competitor for a city's tourism business. When everyone pointed this out to the city, it decided to not pursue any legal action. But the city continued to threaten local businesses with its trademark, including Vintage Roadside, which sells a "Made In Portland" series of photos on Etsy, some of which included the famous sign. Vintage Roadside decided to sue the city to have the trademark declared invalid, prompting Portland officials to issue a covenant not to sue to avoid any ruling on the matter.

You might have thought that this series of slapdowns would have deterred Portland officials from this bullying course of action, but you'd be wrong. Portland attempted to expand the trademark it has for the sign into the alcohol designation, thinking that it could license the image to beermakers and make some coin. Unfortunately for the city, a local brewery already has a trademark for the sign for the beer business.

Adam Milne's brewpub is fighting City Hall. And as of today, Milne is winning. The white sign hanging above the front door of Old Town Brewing's taproom on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard features the silhouette of a leaping buck. Behind the bar, a herd of white stags bound across eight wooden beer tap handles. The glasses, the coasters, and every bottle of Pilsner brewed in-house are festooned with the jumping deer—the same one that glows on the iconic "Portland Oregon" sign.

In the fall of 2016, the city attempted to expand its trademark into the territory of beer. This September, a year later, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the city's request, citing the similarity to Old Town Brewing's trademark, issued in 2012.

"Getting the trademark was a very long, challenging process," Milne says. "We've built a brand we're so proud of."

Now, Portland has been clear that it intends to partner with macro-breweries across the nation in a licensing scheme for the sign. It surely must have known that Old Town Brewing, local to the area, had a trademark on the imagery in question, yet it attempted to register the mark anyway. And, after the rebuke from the USPTO, it seems the city is still going to pursue the mark, essentially trying to muscle out a local business to pursue national licensing arrangements.

Bryant Enge, director of the city's Bureau of Internal Business Services, says he's not discouraged by the patent office's rejection of Portland's trademark application. "Initial trademark application rejections are not uncommon," Enge says. "We're confident that the trademark will be approved."

And the city is not even waiting for its preferred outcome before pursuing the very licensing arrangements that were the impetus for all this to begin with.

Curiously, while the federal patent office ruled that Old Town Brewing's claim to the White Stag image is "incontestable," the city continues to negotiate with big brewers over licensing rights. The Pabst deal with the city doesn't bother Milne—a unicorn isn't going to be confused with a stag, he says. But the local beer makers at Old Town Brewing fear the city will try to license the image of the stag to large, corporate alcohol sellers.

That sure reads like a pretty blatant violation of trademark law, with the added spice of it being done by a city government to one of its constituent businesses. Whatever the outcome of the trademark appeal, that's pretty gross.

Filed Under: adam milne, portland, trademark
Companies: old town brewing

Portland City Officials Agree Not To Sue Over Portland Oregon Sign To Keep Court From Ruling On Trademark

from the punt dept

Portland, the city, is back in the news again regarding Portland, the sign, and the city's insistence that it has a trademark over the landmark. We last checked in on this when Pabst, the brewery, had used an adaptation of the famous Portland sign to promote a concert in the city. The city then worked out an arrangement with Pabst so that it could keep using its sign imagery and keep the case out of the court. This was fully in the city's interests, because it's unclear on why a municipality should be granted a trademark on a local landmark's image when it isn't actually using that image in commerce.

It seems Jeff Kunkle, owner of the Vintage Roadside shop, which sells merchandise on Etsy, thinks similarly. When Portland found that Kunkle was selling merchandise with images of the sign, the city contacted him to arrange a licensing deal. Kunkle told them to go dangle, instead suing the city to have its trademark over the sign declared invalid.

Vintage Roadside, a Portland company that sells photos of the old "Made in Oregon" sign on Etsy, is suing the city of Portland, which recently sought a licensing payment from the company for use of the image. The suit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Thursday, asks the court to declare the city's trademark of the sign, which changed to "Portland Oregon" in 2010, invalid and unenforceable.

Oops. So, if you're Portland and you've been extracting money from individuals and businesses by way of a trademark that would likely be declared invalid should a judge look it over, what do you do? Well, you utilize the rules of the court to weasel your way out of the whole thing while not admitting that your sign trademark is bullshit, of course!

City of Portland officials are employing a creative legal maneuver to get rid of a lawsuit concerning its trademark of the "Portland Oregon" sign. Last week, the city told Kunkle's attorney, Robert Swider, that it was filing a covenant not to sue, which basically means that the city still believes the city owns the rights to the sign but won't try to enforce them against Kunkle—now or ever... By eliminating that point of contention, the city takes away Kunkle's standing to bring the lawsuit.

Which keeps the question over whether or not the city's trademark is even valid to begin with. The good news is that this specific story will hopefully get enough play in the Portland area to serve as a beacon to anyone the city might later approach for one of its "licensing deals." It should be clear at this point that the proper response to the city is to sue them outright.

Filed Under: portland, trademark

Judge Calls Out Portland Police For Bogus 'Contempt Of Cop' Arrest/Beating

from the self-defense-against-excessive-force-possibly-a-thing dept

It doesn't happen often, but a judge has called out police officers for using a non-existent offense -- "contempt of cop" -- to justify the use of force against a detained person. Multnomah County (OR) Judge Diana Stewart cleared 16-year-old Portland resident Thai Gurule of several charges brought against him after he was pummeled and tased by police officers for… well, basically for responding angrily to a somewhat derogatory gesture.

Police that night had been looking for a group of seven to nine African American men, including one shirtless one, who had been walking the streets, reportedly damaging property and yelling profanities. Within minutes of receiving the group's last known location, police several blocks away focused their attention on a group of three young men: Gurule, his 20-year-old brother and their friend.

That was the narrative up to the point where Thai Gurule found himself on the receiving end of fists and Tasers. Ignoring the fact that this group had little in common with the suspects other than race, we come to what turned this incident into a confrontation and, finally, a one-side melee.

The following comes from the judge's statement on the dismissal of charges:

As the youth walked past, Officer Hughes said, "Hey" to the youth and when the youth continued, he again said, "Hey" and clapped his hands.

Thai Gurule turned to face Officer Hughes and in an angry or aggressive voice said "Don't fucking clap your hands at me". Officer Hughes stepped forward while the youth stepped back.

Cue escalation. The officers decided to cuff Gurule (for "resisting arrest," apparently). As a crowd began to gather, the officers decided to move Gurule into a prone position for cuffing, supposedly for officer safety. But rather than let Gurule move to a prone position, one of the officers decided to speed up the process by sweeping Gurule's feet out from underneath him. From that point, it became an uncontrolled beating. One officer held Gurule by the hair while the other two wrestled him to the ground and hit him multiple times with their fists and knees. Finding the one-sided "struggle" to be ineffective, Sgt. Lile deployed his Taser.

After they were done throwing blows, the officers threw the book at Thai Gurule, listing all of the following charges on the police report:

Aggravated assault
Simple assault
Criminal threats
Disorderly conduct
Interference with public safety
Resisting arrest

The accompanying reports filed by the officers maintained that Gurule repeatedly swung his fists at officers and tried to choke one of them. Unfortunately for these officers, multiple recordings of the incident that contradicted their narrative were made available to the judge.

Judge Stewart was obviously irate at the thick stack of lies delivered to her in the form of police reports and sworn testimony. She also was none too happy with the officers' justification for initiating the arrest of a person who had done nothing more than fail to treat Officer Hughes with as much deference as he felt he deserved. Not only did she dismiss the charges, but she read the entire damning dismissal order out loud.

In discussing the "resisting arrest" charge, Judge Stewart also addressed the pure BS motivating the officers' arrest of Gurule. She points out there's an exceedingly low bar that needs to be met to satisfy the requirements for bringing this charge, but the officers couldn't even meet that.

Actual restraint was placed upon the youth at the moment that Officers Hughes and Hornstein placed control or escort holds on the youth. At that moment, even given the broad authority described above, there is insufficient evidence before the court that the Officers were operating under their community caretaking function, or therefore under color.

At that time, there is no evidence of concerns about a crowd forming. That concern arose as much as a minute later when the officers decided to take the youth to the ground.

Establishing this, she gets to the heart of the matter.

The only facts before the court are that the youth failed the attitude test when he turned and aggressively complained about Officer Hughes clapping him hands. Officer Hughes stepped forward and the youth stepped back and Officer Hughes, immediately followed by Officer Hornstein placed the holds restraining the youth.

And there it is: the bogus arrest was prompted by a little disrespect Officer Hughes just couldn't handle. It is surprising enough that a judge would call out an officer for this sort of behavior. It's even more surprising that she would move on to allowing an arrested suspect's self-defense claims stand. In most cases, the judicial branch shows deference to police officers who use excessive force in their self-defense ("feared for their safety"). In this instance, the deference went the other way.

[W]hile a person may not use physical force to resist what is actually or perceived by the defendant to be an unlawful arrest, a person may use physical force in defending oneself from excessive use of force by an arresting officer. Any injury caused to an officer in the course of engaging in a justifiable use of force to defend oneself may under such circumstances be justified and not criminal.

[...]

In this case, the youth's age is a relevant factor which the court considers even without the testimony of youth. Therefore, the question before the court is whether this youth and a reasonable 16 year old youth in his position would have believed that the use or imminent use of force against him exceeded the force reasonably necessary and whether he was entitled to defend himself with a degree of force which a reasonable 16 year old would reasonably believe to be necessary for the purpose.

[...]

The take down, although intended to be gentle and with adequate warning was nothing like that plan. Officer Hornstein swept the youth's feet out from under him causing him the sensation of falling forward without the use of his hands to break his fall. The next 35 to 45 seconds was a melee of fists and punches and bodies falling upon him. Prior to reaching the wall, the youth was attempting to regain his footing and get back on his feet and remove himself from what a reasonable person would have felt was a senseless and aggressive use of excessive physical force.

Once at the wall, the independent evidence of the video clips is less clear but continues to show the youth trying to struggle away from the officers rather than engage in a physical altercation…

[...]

[G]iven that confusion, rapidity of events, the tangle of officers and the youth and the confusion caused by the crowd, I find that as to all charges herein, the state has not established beyond a reasonable doubt that the youth was not reasonably justified in the use of self-defense as to all of the charges herein.

And with that, Thai Gurule is no longer facing criminal charges. As of yet, there's no word of what consequences, if any, are awaiting the officers involved. The city's police department is only a couple of years removed from a DOJ investigation, but incidents like these show there's still work to be done.

And, of course, the local police union has greeted this decision with assertions that the officers involved did nothing wrong and that Judge Stewart is nothing more than an armchair quarterback, but you'll have to click over to Popehat to read Ken White's entertaining/infuriating take on the union head's counterclaims.

Filed Under: beating, contempt of cop, police, police violence, portland, portland police

Portland Police Bravely Defend Public From Homeless Woman Looking To Charge Her Cell Phone

from the real-american-heroes dept

Police: they have a job that demands respect, even if those doing the job occassionally do not. We talk a great deal here at Techdirt about some of the frightening uses of military grade equipment by local law enforcement agencies, about what sometimes seems like a neverending list of civil rights abuses, and so on. Still, as I said, I respect the job. It's my respect for that job that leads me to think that the Portland cops who arrested a homeless woman for charging her phone on a public outlet need a greater understanding of what it is exactly that police in this stupid country are supposed to do.

Now, if you're thinking to yourself, "There's no way police in Portland arrested a person just for plugging her cell phone charger into a public outlet," well, you're correct; they arrested two people for that in one trip.

In this case, the theft was first reported by Portland Patrol Inc., and two Portland police officers followed up to issue the woman and her co-defendant, a homeless man who was also charging his cellphone at the planter box outlet, citations to appear in court for third-degree theft of services — a Class C misdemeanor. According to the Electrical Research Institute, it costs about 25 cents a year to charge the average mobile phone. If the phone in this scenario had gone from zero charge to full charge, the cost would have amounted to mere fractions of a penny.

“Jackie,” (who did not want her real name used), says she was shocked when four uniformed officers all agreed her actions warranted not only their response, but also charges and a court summons.

Let's play a quick game. Pick out which part of the pull quote above is the most ridiculous aspect of this story. Got it? You picked the part where the homeless woman and a homeless man were charged with theft for plugging in their phones to a public outlet, didn't you? Well, you're wrong. That is ridiculous, of course, but any single police officer might be some asshole idiot capable of being this dumb. No, the most ridiculous part of the above pull quote is that it took four goddamned officers to respond to this request, and they still reached the conclusion that a citation was warranted. If these aren't verified to be the four dimmest officers on Portland's force, then the entire city has much larger problems.

Oh, and should you be waiting to jump into the comments with some snarky question about why a homeless woman should have a cell phone in the first place, please keep in mind that phones cost less than houses. Also, shut up. Because strictly from the point of view of safety, not to mention the hopes of having any kind of future employment or way to communicate with social services, a cell phone at this point is so necessary for the homeless, not to mention everyone else, that the government should probably be furnishing everyone with some kind of holographic communciations and record-keeping tool that appears on your forearm when needed.

Pictured: a homeless person in President Geigner's America

Now, the Jackie in this story has never before been convicted of a crime, but she missed her court date after losing her citation because, well, where the shit is she going to put it? It's not like she's got a damned file cabinet stocked up in the house she doesn't own. Knowing she missed the court date, Jackie turned herself in to the police and ended up being booked into jail. Keep in mind, if you can, that this is all over "stealing" electricity at levels of "fractions of a penny." Jackie is on several waiting lists for assisted housing and might actually want to work someplace in the future, but, if convicted, she'll always have to be checking that "been convicted of a crime" box now on applications, thanks to a dumb law and four brave boys in blue.

And don't think that this is a completely isolated incident, either.

Jackie’s was not an isolated incident. Public defender Jane Fox says she’s seen similar cases.

“It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s just insane,” says Fox. “The (case) that I had was somebody charging their phone by the Greyhound bus station. Don’t you have a reasonable expectation that an outlet near the bus station would be OK?”

Only if you thought there was such a thing as common sense, which is clearly in short enough supply so as to no longer be common. As I said, I respect the job of the police, but I sure don't respect the job that these four defenders of the public good managed to do. And just to wrap a nice bow on how stupid this all is, how much do you think the public is paying in tax money to prosecute Jackie's fractions-of-a-penny theft? It seems likely that the paper the citation was written up on cost the taxpayers more than what she did, not to mention getting everyone in the court system involved. And, yet, Jackie's the one stealing from taxpayers? Please...

Filed Under: charging, homeless, mobile phones, police, portland

Portland (The City) And Pabst (The...Beer?) Cease Battling Over Unnecessary Trademark Dispute

from the how-productive dept

Beer: it seems to cause all kinds of trademark problems. I'm actually not sure why that is. Beer makes me happy, not litigious. But for some reason, it also tends to make breweries go after other breweries, educational institutions go crazy on breweries, and even occassionaly causes all the Schlaflys in existence to fight against one another. And now, it appears to have claimed the great city of Portland, Oregon as the latest victim of its trademark-dispute-inducing properties.

Well, to be fair, the dispute part actually appears to be coming to an end. The problem is that it never should have started at all. You see, Portland, a city, initially sent a cease and desist letter to Pabst Brewing Co., makers of the skinny-jeans-flavored beer, all over an advertisement for a music festival the brewery was putting on in the area.

The city had alleged the brewery used "a confusingly similar version" of the Rose City's trademarked "Portland Oregon" sign, which sits on the roof of the White Stag building in Old Town-Chinatown, to promote the beer giant's inaugural Project Pabst music festival. On Wednesday, the City Council was expected to sign off on legal action against the company to recoup unspecified damages for the "unauthorized use of the trademark."

And here are the signs in question:

So, first off, they're obviously similar. So similar that moronic visitors or residents of the city of Portland will somehow think that Pabst bought their town, or vice versa? Probably not. Why? Well, because, you see, one is a god damned city and the other is a brewery. I'm frankly not entirely certain how the city's trademark was granted in the first place, since I'm not clear on how having a sign announcing what city the person reading it is in denotes any kind of commercial application. It may be that the city had planned on using images of the sign on shirts and clothing and the like, but even if that's the case, it wouldn't conflict with Pabst putting on a concert. Pabst and the city of Portland aren't competing with one another in any kind of marketplace, so the whole dispute was fallacious to begin with.

Fortunately, it appears somebody clued the city in on all this.

But Dana Haynes, Hales' spokesman, said both parties are now trying to reach an accord. "The attorneys from both sides have been communicating, and they felt they were in close proximity to an amicable solution," Haynes said. They haven't reached a solution, but avoiding a costly lawsuit "would be the better solution by far," Haynes said.

No kidding. All the more so since Portland would lose that costly lawsuit on the grounds that they're a city and shut up. Even so, it appears Pabst, who started all of this by trying to put on a freaking concert in the city, is playing peacemaker. They've altered the logo slightly on their websites. Too bad, because they didn't have to. It's nice to see a trademark dispute end outside the courthouse rather than within, but it'd be even nicer if this nonsense hadn't started to begin with.

Filed Under: beer, portland, trademark
Companies: pabst

Judge Tries To Gag Reporters Covering Court Case, Gets Ignored

from the shut-up,-he-ineffectually-demanded dept

Prior restraint much? (via Jim Romenesko)

Anthony J. Sineni III, 52, of Standish sought to restrict media coverage of the case against him in the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland and persuaded a judge to order the media not to report what he or any witnesses said in court.

Judge Jeffrey Moskowitz, the deputy chief of the state’s district court, told members of the media as the hearing began what they could and could not report.

A reporter for the Portland Press Herald protested the order and asked for time to contact legal counsel. Moskowitz denied the request and said the hearing would proceed without delay, declaring that anyone who did not agree to comply with his order to report only what the prosecutor and Sineni’s attorney said would be ejected from the courtroom.

How a judge arrived at the conclusion that he could violate the First Amendment rights of these reporters is unexplained. (Perhaps he'll explain it during the special hearing he's called for Wednesday, involving the paper and its lawyers.) It simply is. Sineni -- facing charges related to a domestic violence case -- asked and received. Except that his granted request was ultimately futile. The Portland Press Herald seems to have a better grasp on the First Amendment than Judge Moskowitz does.

An attorney for the Portland Press Herald, Sigmund Schutz, said Monday evening that the judge’s order to the media was a clear violation of the public’s First Amendment constitutional right of free speech.

“There is a 100 percent chance that the order is unlawful,” Schutz said. “I think there is no question that the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts have been very clear, what occurs or is said in the court is a matter of public record.”

Sineni, however, appears to believe little things like the First Amendment don't apply to him or his case. He also seems to feel laws of all types are for other people, according to testimony delivered by his ex-girlfriend (Winona Hichborn) -- the same testimony the Press Herald was ordered not to report on.

“Tony (Sineni) told me before that he is above the law and that if he gets away with this they won’t be able to touch him,” Hichborn testified, flanked by her attorney and a victim-witness advocate.

So, it appears Sineni is every bit as wrong as Judge Moskowitz is. Sineni pled no contest but conceded there was enough evidence find him guilty on two of the charges. The law appears to be pulling level with Sineni's cruising altitude. And the ruling issued by Moskowitz has been treated as though he had never bothered wasting his breath uttering the unlawful order in the first place. Good for the Press Herald, which had the insight and fortitude to call BS and do what it was supposed to be doing in the first place: reporting on events that occurred in a public forum.

And as for Sineni, he has hopefully learned that trying to shut people up only makes them speak more loudly -- and that raised voice tends to create plenty of echoes. What would have just been a local interest story is now spreading nationally, and that won't be doing any favors for Sineni's reputation -- or Judge Moskowitz's.

Filed Under: anthony sineni, anthony sineni iii, first amendment, free speech, jeffrey moskowitz, portland, portland press herlad, prior restraint

Once Again, Established Businesses Get Angry At 'Free' Competition

from the welcome-to-the-world dept

It's no secret that established businesses or organizations get upset when they see any form of "free" competition -- even when it's utilizing a new or different business model or social model. We've seen it with taxi cabs and with online mapping services among other things. And, now it's apparently happening with a fun contest that the city of Portland decided to run. Josh alerts us to the fact that Portland decided to try to crowdsource the redesign of the city's website. This sounds like a good idea, but the city's professional designers apparently are freaking out. Of course, this ignores a few key points: first, the city still intends to hire a professional to implement the design, and most of these firms wouldn't have received the business anyway. Besides, what better way to get the actual implementation business than submitting a design idea themselves? The real problem is that these design pros think they have a monopoly on design. There's no doubt that, being professionals, they're likely going to be better at it, but that doesn't mean they get to stop others from jumping in and submitting design ideas. Rather than fighting against the tide, they ought to learn how to surf.

Filed Under: crowdsourcing, portland, web design