Is Bell's being a bully in their trademark dispute with a small NC brewer?

"We didn't see any confusion" with Bell's, Dexter said. "We were pretty confident it could be worked out." But now the brewery has retained attorneys to defend itself.

They say that Bell's "bottling innovation since 1985" slogan is not protected by a registered trademark and has not been used in conjunction with the sale of beer.

The matter slowly is unfolding in the U.S. Trademark Trials and Appeals Board in Virginia. The Innovation name was filed in 2013, but a ruling won't come before October, and maybe later, Innovation trademark attorney Ian Gates said. "It's a long process."

Bell's founder Larry Bell would not discuss the issue. "This is a federal case and we will let it play out in federal court," he said. "We are not going to play it out in social media or a newspaper." Bell's distributes its beers in 18 states, according to its website, including North and South Carolina.

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2015/03/10/small-wnc-brewery-big-trademark-dispute/24715493/

One of the latest squabbles, first reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times in North Carolina, is between Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo and Innovation Brewing in Sylva, N.C., a much smaller craft brewery. Bell's claims the name infringes on its rights to the slogan, "bottling innovation since 1985," and would be confusing to customers.John Truscott, a spokesman for Bell's, said late Wednesday the Michigan brewery has no objection to Innovation using its name to sell beer, but it is challenging the company's efforts to federally trademark the Innovation name. Truscott also said Innovation has rejected compensation offers from Bell's.

http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/03/11/bells-innovation-craft-beer-dispute/70157338/

It's like Biggy said, "Mo money, mo craft breweries trying to steal yo shit."

Sylva, North Carolina.. the heart of Jackson County.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:Sylva, North Carolina.. the heart of Jackson County.

Tell us some stories about hunting rattlesnakes, Bob.

Turtleneck wrote:

Tell us some stories about hunting rattlesnakes, Bob.

plenty of 'em there..

I've done a lot of great cycling through Jackson County.. some good water skiiing/camping at Bear Lake - just down from Glenville - another nice lake. Beautiful area. Borders Haywood County, home to Waynesville - another nice town.

not sure about the beer trademark dispute though.

Our local homwbrew store use to sell clones of most of the Bells offerings calling them by name. "Two Hearted Ale Clone", "Oberon Clone" etc. Bells sent them a cease and desist letter demanding they change the name of all their clones. They complied and all of them are now called Kalamazoo IPA, Kalamazoo Wheat.

This is a ridiculous lawsuit and it seems Bells has been pretty sue happy lately. If you check the post on their Facebook page about this suit people are slamming them and are boycotting their beers. Not a smart move.

what's pretty funny is that Bells was once a target of a trademark dispute. Hence the reason Solsum was renamed to Oberon.

can we talk more about the North Carolina mountains now?

Bottling innovation since 1985?

Robert J Sakimano wrote:what's pretty funny is that Bells was once a target of a trademark dispute. Hence the reason Solsum was renamed to Oberon.

can we talk more about the North Carolina mountains now?

Solsun.

Nice picture, Nigel.

WHO CARES?

Larry Bell can't decide what side of the street he wants to walk on. One day he's the "small independent brewer" and the next he's paying lawyers to sue just like one of the mega brewing conglomerates.

I knew him when he was just another guy who started brewing beer and was showing up at home brewer meetings bitching about what he has become over 30 years later. Now Larry's got some money and is hoping the people he's suing will change they name rather than participate in a protracted court fight. Unless Bell's has a brewed product called "Inovation" I hope he loses.

Yes they are. Bad decision iyam. Brew your awesome beer and make your money and stop worrying about the competition so much.

y2kMgrad wrote:Yes they are. Bad decision iyam. Brew your awesome beer and make your money and stop worrying about the competition so much.

This. I never associated Bells with Brewing Innovation.

From the defense fb page:

Innovation Brewing
March 12 at 2:27pm ·

To Our Wonderful Craft Beer Community:

We felt it was important to get our story out to the media because this is an important matter for the craft beer industry. We did not intend (nor do we want to) have a social media battle with Bell's, but because of allegations posted on Bell’s Brewery’s Facebook page we now have to defend ourselves. Settlement discussions are protected communications that are not to be disclosed publicly, so out of respect to Bell’s Brewery’s rights we would never have disclosed them. Furthermore, Mr. Bell pointedly stated that he would not “play this out on social media” – and so we again respected his wishes by keeping the details to ourselves. Now, it appears they changed their mind.

We are planning to deliver a full statement of the facts and events that have brought us to this point. Until then, we feel it necessary to respond to Ms. Bell’s enumerated allegations. Thank you for continuing to support and believe in us. You keep us going through this difficult time.

1. Yes, this is a TM proceeding and not a lawsuit, although it is like a lawsuit, requiring legal representation, being personally deposed, and including a trial. They are asking us to withdraw our federal trademark application for our brand name.
2. We do not believe that any human on earth would confuse Innovation Brewing with Bell’s Brewery, despite their slogans.
3. Laura Bell did contact me at 7:00 pm the night before their opposition filing was due. They had already hired attorneys to represent them and file for their extension to file the opposition. We had not hired an attorney. After she advised us that she would “let us” keep using the name in NC only, and never expand beyond it, she said that we had until the next day at 5:00 PM to respond. That is 22 hours to find an attorney and decide on the future of our business. That was the one and only attempt Ms. Bell made to contact me. From there their attorneys took over.
4. Not a single co-existence agreement has ever been presented to us by Bell's. In fact it was we who submitted a written co-existence agreement – subsequently declined by Bell’s. The only monetary compensation they have ever offered us was $2,500 which was to cover the inconvenience of being forced to abandon our trademark and go register a different one. The “legal fees”, as Ms. Bell puts it, brought on by their legal action against us, may exceed $50,000. We did not feel like being bought off.
5. This matter was before the TM office one day after she began talking to us. No offer has ever been presented to us other than the offer to limit our business to NC or take $2,500 to start over and build a new brand. We believe in our business, so those are not really offers at all.
6. In regards to Laura Bell stating "we hope to resolve this as swiftly as the system will allow" we suggested the accelerated trademark opposition process that would have brought this to a legal end much sooner and with far less expense, but Bell's denied it.

You great people don’t deserve to be peppered with sides of the story. So we will give you a full account of the facts so you can decide for yourself. We are good people and we know we have your support. Stay tuned.

-Chip and Nicole

If that version is true the Bells are dicks. I agree that no one on the planet would confuse the two breweries and wonder who brought this brewery to their attention in the first place. Are their corporate lawyers who just research other companies trying to find things lawsuits ? This seems so far fetched it blows my mind.

I'm on Larry's side, gotta protect your trademarks. He found this very lesson out the hard way with Solsun/Oberon.

steveschneider wrote:I'm on Larry's side, gotta protect your trademarks. He found this very lesson out the hard way with Solsun/Oberon.

what hard lesson was that? By changing the name for his wheat beer, he kept selling mass quantities?

steveschneider wrote:I'm on Larry's side, gotta protect your trademarks.

Except the phrase "Bottling innovation since 1985" is not registered. So, there is no trademark to protect.

Turtleneck wrote:

Except the phrase "Bottling innovation since 1985" is not registered. So, there is no trademark to protect.

nice edit on the response. sometimes you have to dumb it down for people.

Toe wrote:

what hard lesson was that? By changing the name for his wheat beer, he kept selling mass quantities?

The hard lesson of being legally forced to change the name of your beer and to rebrand it.

Turtleneck wrote:

Except the phrase "Bottling innovation since 1985" is not registered. So, there is no trademark to protect.

They obviously are trying to protect that phrase, and I'm on their side. Trademark or no trademark, they are blocking the little breweries patent. Why doesn't the place in Carolina try to be a little more original instead of ripping off ideas?

steveschneider wrote:

They obviously are trying to protect that phrase, and I'm on their side. Trademark or no trademark, they are blocking the little breweries patent. Why doesn't the place in Carolina try to be a little more original instead of ripping off ideas?

If they wanted to protect the phrase, they should have trademarked the phrase. Also, the NC brewer does not seem like they are ripping off Bell's at all.

Bell's isn't stopping them from using the name, they're just asking to block the small brewery from trademarking it (because they could then tell Bell's to repaint all their trucks that say "brewing innovation" on them.

Rodeo Burger wrote:Bell's isn't stopping them from using the name, they're just asking to block the small brewery from trademarking it (because they could then tell Bell's to repaint all their trucks that say "brewing innovation" on them.

OMG, Larry Bell is just a fat cat capitalist pig going after the small fish!

The Bells are wise to do this move, and you nailed it. The small brewery is playing the victim card and using it to hurt bells. Fuck them I'll never drink that Carolina beer. Going to buy a six pack of delicious two hearted ale tonight!

steveschneider wrote:

OMG, Larry Bell is just a fat cat capitalist pig going after the small fish!

The Bells are wise to do this move, and you nailed it. The small brewery is playing the victim card and using it to hurt bells. Fuck them I'll never drink that Carolina beer. Going to buy a six pack of delicious two hearted ale tonight!

There are some awesome contradictions in this post.

steveschneider wrote:I'm on Larry's side, gotta protect your trademarks. He found this very lesson out the hard way with Solsun/Oberon.

If by "trademarks" you mean loosely used semi-official slogans, I don't now how important that really is. Larry. We know what Bell's is. Your beer is great. They won't come after your slogan and if they do nobody will really care if it's gone.

Now that I better understand what is going on here I don't think there is an issue here. People have blown this way out of proportion.

http://mibiz.com/item/22297-editor%E2%80%99s-notebook-larry-bell-unsettled-by-anger-toward-bell%E2%80%99s-brewery

GirbaudJeans wrote:Now that I better understand what is going on here I don't think there is an issue here. People have blown this way out of proportion.

http://mibiz.com/item/22297-editor%E2%80%99s-notebook-larry-bell-unsettled-by-anger-toward-bell%E2%80%99s-brewery

“We said, ‘Look, we get it, you’re a small business.’ That’s why we offered to pay them a settlement.”

He was shocked by their counter-offer: an exorbitant, six-figure settlement.

“Basically, we called them and tried to be nice and play in the sandbox together,” he said, adding, “I guess they didn’t want to play in the sandbox.”

That was several months ago — the last he heard from Innovation Brewing's owners. So both sides lawyered up and began the arduous journey through the legal process. The matter is moving through the U.S. Trademark Trials and Board in Virginia, with a ruling expected this fall.

- See more at: http://mibiz.com/item/22297-editor%E2%80%99s-notebook-larry-bell-unsettled-by-anger-toward-bell%E2%80%99s-brewery#sthash.hyU088JA.dpuf

Well, people are blowing it out of proportion according to Bell. Based on a couple of posts on their FB page, it sounds like the other side has a completely different take. One was linked to in a recent Mlive article if you want to go dig it up.

GirbaudJeans wrote:Now that I better understand what is going on here I don't think there is an issue here. People have blown this way out of proportion.

http://mibiz.com/item/22297-editor%E2%80%99s-notebook-larry-bell-unsettled-by-anger-toward-bell%E2%80%99s-brewery

That brewery is trying to bilk the bells out of a lot of money. They seem like a bunch of scheming opportunists to me.

Look. Bells is a source of home state pride I stand by them.

steveschneider wrote:

That brewery is trying to bilk the bells out of a lot of money.

Please explain.