Today Washington Beer Blog wrote a piece on the latest battle on naming rights infringement within the beer world—Odin versus McMenamin’s. The issue revolves around Odin naming a beer Ruby. Apparently that name had already been trademarked by McMenamin’s. Laughing Buddha, now Trade Route, had a similar case from a New Zealand brewery who doesn’t even export to the US.
This reminds me of a naming rights infringement case in the ski industry. An indie ski manufacturing company based in Portland, ON3P, was sent a Cease and Desist letter from Scott USA to no longer name a pair of skis The Great Scott. This particular ski was named after one of the owners of the company, Scott Andrus. Without the means to fight the ski industry giant for using his own first name, ON3P took advantage of the situation and later renamed that model, Cease and Desist.
Perhaps Odin should take a similar route. Any naming suggestions?
Read more here: Cease and Desist.
