California Intellectual Property Blog

Orange County – On March 27th, 2018, the Believeland website filed a trademark complaint against Cleveland’s Believeland Beer Festival for unauthorized use of the “Believeland” name. Believeland is a sports website that reports on sports news and sells apparel since 2008. The website owns three trademarks for the term “Believeland,” including for entertainment services and merchandise such as apparel and cups. Believeland originates from the Cleveland Browns football team.

Believeland Beer Festival was founded by Nathan Barnhart and Elaine Lau who have also planned events like the Rocky Run. By day, the married couple runs a business called Run Read the rest

San Diego – On Monday, February 12th, 2018, San Diego based Stone Brewing filed a lawsuit against MillerCoors for allegedly infringing the “Stone” trademark. According to Stone Brewing, during the rebranding of Keystone, MillerCoors has used the “Stone” trademark to potentially steal the customers and reputation of Stone Brewing.

Last April, the new Keystone cans were introduced with the word “Stone” standing out in capital letters. Later, Stone Brewing’s Greg Koch stated that MillerCoors was “deliberately creating confusion in the marketplace.” Koch continued to say MillerCoors was not only jeopardizing Stone Brewing’s reputation in Read the rest

Los Angeles – Founder Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports is ready to sue the NFL over an alleged trademark infringement. Barstool Sports has sold shirts, flags and other apparel with the phrase “Saturdays Are For The Boys.” The NFL recently began selling shirts that include the phrase “Sundays are for the Boys” which is in reference to the Dallas Cowboys.

Apart from the Cowboys, the NFL is also selling shirts that include the phrase “Sundays Are For The [Team Name]” with each team name. Barstool Sports believes that the shirts are a play on the verbiage used by Barstool Sports.

Barstool Sports and the NFL have a rocky relationship from past incid Read the rest

San Diego – After a long-running battle, a jury in San Diego decided in favor of Comic-Con International, the nonprofit behind San Diego Comic-Con, which has been an iconic pop culture fan event for a whopping 50 years. The ruling holds that San Diego Comic-Con does hold trademark rights to “Comic-con”.

The lawsuit began when San Diego Comic-Con claimed that the two defendants Daniel Far Read the rest

Orange County – The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip hop group from New York. Wu-Tang Clan’s producer, RZA, recently filed a trademark opposition against a Brooklyn dog-walking company after it filed a trademark application for “Woof-Tang Clan” on June 8, 2017. The opposition states that the Woof-Tang Clan trademark is likely to be confused with multiple registrations already owned by the Wu-Tang Clan.

Marty Cuatchon is the owner of Woof-Tang Clan, LLC. The company provides Read the rest

Orange County – Moosehead Breweries is the oldest independently owned Brewery in Canada. The moose is an established icon for Moosehead which is a family-owned company founded in 1867. Moosehead owns multiple U.S. trademark registrations for “moose” and “moosehead” as well as moose-based images all for use related to beer.

Hop’n Moose Brewing Company LLC opened a brewpub named Hop’n Moose in downtown Rutland, Vermont in 2014. Its distribution is small, only selling canned beer in 15 stores in the area. Because the company uses “moose” in its name, as well as an image of a moose for the brand name, Moosehead Breweries has accused Hop’n Moose o Read the rest

Los Angeles – Jaguar Land Rover filed five trademark applications between April and September 2016 in hopes to protect the shape of its vehicles. The design most recently called in to question is the Land Rover Defender after Jim Ratcliffe, billionaire owner of Ineos, is looking to release a similar vehicle.

Ineos is a company chiefly focused on chemicals, so it seems questionable that they are attempting to wedge their way into the extremely competitive au Read the rest

San Diego – The Trademark case between San Diego Comic-Con and Salt Lake Comic Con is now moving toward trial. After Salt Lake Comic Con filed a Motion for Summary Judgment claiming that Comic Con was a generic term, U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia refused to dismiss the trademark case citing lackluster evidence to support such a claim.

San Diego Comic-Con is claiming that the two defe Read the rest

Los Angeles – Starbucks, the largest coffee chain in the world, released a unicorn themed Frappuccino for a limited time between April 19th and 23rd of this year. Unicorn themed foods and products have been trending across social media the last couple of years so it is no wonder Starbucks took the opportunity to jump into the fray. However, Starbucks was not the first to create a commercially sold unicorn themed beverage. v

Unicorn themed foods are colored with cotton cand Read the rest

Orange County, California – Infamous burger joint In-n-Out Burger, which originated in Baldwin Park, California in 1948, is suing its new lead competitor Smashburger for a trademark infringement. In-N-Out is currently headquartered in Irvine, California and has 326 locations. Smashburger is a gourmet burger restaurant that started in Denver, Colorado in 2007 and has quickly grown to over 300 locations as well.

While Smashburger is still a new chain, it has gained popularity quite rapidly due to its gourmet and regionally diverse burgers. To date, Smashburger already has more than 370 locations in 37 states and 9 countries.

In-N-Out has used its registered trad Read the rest