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**bovineblitz** · 11-10-2012, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teromous

The same thing happened with Northern Brewer and Bell's Brewery, over the Three Hearted Ale kit, a while back. People were all up in arms, until it came out that there was no bad blood between the two parties. Bell's was legally obligated to send out the letter, and NB obliged. I wonder how this whole thing will pan out. Legal battles are sticky ones...

Exactly. People ****ting on the homebrew shop don't understand how this stuff works. This isn't the same as Coca Cola suing Rock Art over VerMonster.

philjohnwilliams · 11-10-2012, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_bird

I think *somebody* owes royalties to Doug and Bob McKenzie.

They'll probably just take some free beer, though, eh?

Not to mention Eric Clapton

YouTube

ReverseApacheMaster · 11-10-2012, 03:53 PM

If you had been doing business for 15 years under a particular business name and somebody else opened a business in a similar industry with pretty much the same name and it was causing confusion between your suppliers and customers you'd do something about it, too.

**bovineblitz** · 11-10-2012, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperSpy

Posted something to Strange Brew, the homebrew shop's, Facebook page about how their actions are not being well received in the homebrew or craft beer communities (there are also threads on Beer Advocate regarding this) and so they banned me from accessing their Facebook page. Before the ban I made a second post defending them against some guy that was berating them with an excessive use of profanity. It sounds like a bunch of winners are running that shop.

This makes me want to send them a message saying that their actions are just fine.

**RM-MN** · 11-10-2012, 05:49 PM

If the two businesses were down the street from each other and both offered the same type of "goods" I could see the lawsuit but there serve 2 different markets and a separated by half a continent. I hope any lawsuit is thrown out by the judge.

phenry · 11-10-2012, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReverseApacheMaster

If you had been doing business for 15 years under a particular business name and somebody else opened a business in a similar industry with pretty much the same name and it was causing confusion between your suppliers and customers you'd do something about it, too.

I don't really understand how it would cause confusion between suppliers in this context though. So they both may order a pallet of 50# 2-row sacks from the same company. It would be pretty ignorant on the seller's part to get that shipment wrong when one's going to the east coast and the other to the mountains and the names of both establishments being, on a whole, unique. And pretty ignorant on the customer's part too. I'm pretty sure that lawyer is blowing things out of proportion as a scare tactic to try and get the brewery to submit to whatever the HBS's requests may be.

If you visit a website and it isn't what you're looking for, there's always the back button and search engines to help you find what you're looking for. Pretty ridiculous assertions by the HBS in my opinion.

FuzzeWuzze · 11-10-2012, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RM-MN

If the two businesses were down the street from each other and both offered the same type of "goods" I could see the lawsuit but there serve 2 different markets and a separated by half a continent. I hope any lawsuit is thrown out by the judge.

The problem is this guy at the Brew shop already has documented cases where his vendors sent things to the wrong place or otherwise got confused between strange brewing homebrew shop and strange brewing beer manufacturer.

I'd normally agree, but if i was losing customers and having heartaches with my vendors(the life of your average small company) because someone has a name almost identical to yours i'd probably do something about it too.

**SuperSpy** · 11-10-2012, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FuzzeWuzze

The problem is this guy at the Brew shop already has documented cases where his vendors sent things to the wrong place or otherwise got confused between strange brewing homebrew shop and strange brewing beer manufacturer.

I'd normally agree, but if i was losing customers and having heartaches with my vendors(the life of your average small company) because someone has a name almost identical to yours i'd probably do something about it too.

I think I would try to work things out with the vendors first. From what I read in one of the documents it's possible that this has taken place but I can't imagine it would be too terribly difficult for a vendor to figure out that a home brew shop is MA and a brewery in CO aren't the same entity.

Also, Strange Brew does argue that they have a customer base in Colorado but it's a big state and their customer base is only "well over two dozen." "Over two dozen" customers for a 16 year old business doesn't seem to be too much of a customer base. Of course this is trademark law and often you only need one customer in order to have a claim, and my statements are only based on what's in the published letters from the lawyer.

**allenH** · 11-10-2012, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RM-MN

If the two businesses were down the street from each other and both offered the same type of "goods" I could see the lawsuit but there serve 2 different markets and a separated by half a continent. I hope any lawsuit is thrown out by the judge.

They do quite a bit of business on eBay/Amazon. I don't even remember what I ordered, but they sent this nifty sticker.

davefleck · 11-10-2012, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenH

Attachment 83284

They do quite a bit of business on eBay/Amazon. I don't even remember what I ordered, but they sent this nifty sticker.

pretty sure they ripped that bear from the grateful dead