Following a nice evening out chatting with Kevin O’Keefe, it’s time for my favorite weekend of all – the NCAA tournament.
Now this post isn’t necessarily about basketball, but rather rivalries. In particular, rivalries between the state of Michigan and the state of North Carolina. Michigan v Duke, Michigan State v. North Carolina…there’s plenty of rivalry there.
Within the last week, Michigan-based brewery Bell’s Brewery, which brews one of my favorite transported ales – the Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, has challenged the name of North Carolina-based brewery Innovation Brewing, which brews about 500 barrels a year.
Anything striking a chord for trademark issues yet? Any idea why Bell’s might be challenging a company like Innovation Brewing?
Well because, unbeknownst to me likely because I have only ever purchased Bell’s off of a tap menu, apparently Bell’s has an unregistered tagline “bottling innovation since 1985” – a tagline that I couldn’t find use of in a very cursory search of its websites and labels.
Bell’s has faced some considerable consumer scrutiny over this challenge, even being labeled a trademark “bully.” North Carolina loyalists are pretty upset that Michigan-based Bell’s would challenge this.
What do you think? Is it madness? Do you have any innovative strategies to combat this issue?
No opinion on this? Well, who do you have winning it all for the NCAA basketball tournament?