Battle over the "strange" name

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Even worse he refuses and offer to work together, a potential massive increase to his customer base and calls it offensive.
 
I think *somebody* owes royalties to Doug and Bob McKenzie.

Strange_Brew_81404.jpg


They'll probably just take some free beer, though, eh?
 
not to mention cost both of them a ton of money in legal fees most likely...

the microbrewery should just put "brews" instead of brew and that would solve the problem :)
 
Reading the letters from the lawyer, it seems like a decent request. He has the trademark for a pretty specific set of terms and the brewery is infringing on them.

You cant go open a Stone Brew supplies shop for similar reasons probably.

Yes its dickish and unnecessary, but it is the law. Also the fact that he has proof his company has been confused with the brewery by his vendors, he will win in court if he really does own the trademark.
 
A guy has a HBS called Strange Brew Beer & Wine Making Supplies and he wants to sue another company because they are named Strange Brewing Company?
This should be an interesting case but I have no faith that common sense will win the day.
 
Initially, yeah. but still, wouldn't it be more fitting to create a joint venture, a Strange East and a Strange West sort of thing?
 
Initially, yeah. but still, wouldn't it be more fitting to create a joint venture, a Strange East and a Strange West sort of thing?

Why would you form a business partnership with someone you have never met, and started only 2 years ago to enter probably a nano brewery scale when you have a business that's 15+ years old?

The brewery would only have things to gain from that relationship, nobody really knows who the hell Strange Brewing is, having their recipes at a brew shop really does nothing for them. If it was like Ninkasi/Stone or some other bigger micro brewery offering this it'd be a whole different story.
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
Why would you form a business partnership with someone you have never met, and started only 2 years ago to enter probably a nano brewery scale when you have a business that's 15+ years old?

The brewery would only have things to gain from that relationship, nobody really knows who the hell Strange Brewing is, having their recipes at a brew shop really does nothing for them. If it was like Ninkasi/Stone or some other bigger micro brewery offering this it'd be a whole different story.

Until they win a medal at GABF, then everyone will want their recipes.
 
Why would you form a business partnership with someone you have never met, and started only 2 years ago to enter probably a nano brewery scale when you have a business that's 15+ years old?

The brewery would only have things to gain from that relationship, nobody really knows who the hell Strange Brewing is, having their recipes at a brew shop really does nothing for them. If it was like Ninkasi/Stone or some other bigger micro brewery offering this it'd be a whole different story.

I'm just thinking possibilities. I'm not telling them to lighten up and let it go. I think there could be a chance for a good thing for both rather than an all or nothing for one. As far as not knowing one another, rather than jump into yet another lawsuit in this country, offer to meet and discuss possibilities and potentials! If nothing productive comes out of it, then work out any naming difficulties.
In this day and age they can meet over video conference, we do it here in Alaska even.
 
Such a waste of time and Money
Your company, on the other hand, is a directly competitive enterprise, operating in a erritory in which my client has an established customer base, and you are using a name that is virtually identical to a name around which my client has spent 16 years building a reputation and securing Federal trademark protection. My client has no intention of allowing this valuable investment to be hijacked by another company, particularly where it appears that, at the time you adopted the name Strange Brewing Company, you were well aware, and on public notice, of my client's existence, business activities and Federal trademark protection.

I dont understand how any person could say they are direct competitors. I buy craft brew from craft breweries and my supplies from homebrew shops. I beleive most homebrewers will know the difference. I would be more confused by the fact that when I google "Strange Brew Homebrew" sites like http://www.strangebrew.org/ - a Homebrew club in oregon/washington, or http://www.strangebrew.ca/ a brew software program come up. I would also think think that the homebrew shops customer base is Colorado is well aware of the difference and probably supports both?

Didn't this happen with two breweries having similar beer names? Ended up that one of the breweries lawyers contact the other without telling its client? I dont know, just seems like a huge waste of time...unless the homebrew shop is trying to start its own brewery under that name?
 
there is a big difference between being legally correct and morally right.

are they going after these guys too?
http://www.strangebrewaustin.com/
http://strangebrewcoffeehouse.myshopify.com/
http://www.strangebrewtavern.net/
http://www.strangebrew.ca/
http://www.strangebrewband.net/home.cfm
http://brewnk.com/
http://www.gocomics.com/strangebrew
http://www.thecauldron.com/ocean/host.php?page=0
http://www.strangebrew.org/
http://www.strangebrewfestpt.com/

I'm sure there are plenty more.



Reading the letters from the lawyer, it seems like a decent request. He has the trademark for a pretty specific set of terms and the brewery is infringing on them.

You cant go open a Stone Brew supplies shop for similar reasons probably.

Yes its dickish and unnecessary, but it is the law. Also the fact that he has proof his company has been confused with the brewery by his vendors, he will win in court if he really does own the trademark.
 
The Strange Brew Band, who has been together since 1967, should sue Strange Brew Beer and Wine making Supplies. One good turn deserves another.

 
A homebrew supply shop and a brewery can not be considered competitors in any way that makes sense. Seems frivolous to me, too bad it's going to cost the brewery a ton of money in legal fees.
 
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...
 
For the record, strange makes some excellent brews. I go down there every now and then. They had a wet hop Belgian golden strong that is killer, along with a couple other wet hop ales that were killer last month. The pumpkin porter is a slice of heaven.

This sucks, they're really great people.
 
Back in the mid-2000s Saint Arnold (Texas' oldest microbrewery) was challenged by the much larger Sierra Nevada for the use of calling their seasonal pilsner Summerfest. Everyone played nice, and Sierra Nevada even paid the costs of Saint Arnold having to redesign and repackage their product. Common sense prevails sometimes....

http://www.saintarnold.com/beers/summer.html
 
How did they not know this would happen on yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/strange-brew-marlborough

Sometimes people forget that consumers have the right to not do business with ********.

Unless you're something like Walmart where your sales rival the GDP of a large number of COUNTRIES, you better listen to your customers. Don't ever underestimate your target audience.
 
Sad, really. Met the owner at Blues N' Brews a few times over the years, seemed like a nice dude....greed is a terrible thing.

And to answer the above question about beer names, Russian River and Avery both had a beer named Salvation. Rather than cause each other grief, the brewed Collaboration Not Litigation, which is a blend of both beers.
 
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.
 
Back in the mid-2000s Saint Arnold (Texas' oldest microbrewery) was challenged by the much larger Sierra Nevada for the use of calling their seasonal pilsner Summerfest. Everyone played nice, and Sierra Nevada even paid the costs of Saint Arnold having to redesign and repackage their product. Common sense prevails sometimes....

http://www.saintarnold.com/beers/summer.html

Sierra Nevada is one of the best companies in the country.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
RM-MN said:
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.



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