The City of Portland is known as a hub for craft beer, and its local government couldn’t be prouder. The Travel Portland website proudly proclaims that Portland is “home to more breweries than any other city on earth.” Yet the city’s relationship with the local craft beer scene is not so bubbly at the moment,

SilverPatron

When we write about non-traditional trademark enforcement here on DuetsBlog, we almost always are referring to the protection of non-traditional marks like product configurations, product containers, product packaging, color marks, scent marks, tactile marks, and other non-verbal indications of source for a product or service. But, today we’re adding

We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink here over the past several years discussing the protection of non-traditional trademarks. We’ve also written about the importance of layering various intellectual property rights (trademark, copyright, and patent) to accomplish the competitive goals of a business. And, we’ve enjoyed writing about non-traditional vodka branding here and here

Combing through the USPTO’s recently approved non-verbal trademark registrations revealed this little gem with Francis Ford Coppola’s name on the label (but not claimed as part of the mark):

Here is the USPTO drawing on the left, showing the claimed mark without any words or colors:

So, besides claiming a broader scope of rights

Diageo, the Tanqueray brand owner is currently running billboard ads in the Twin Cities as part of its “Tonight We Tanqueray” ad campaign. A couple of years back when the campaign first was announced, Diageo explained it this way:

“One of the world’s most awarded

Last week I captured a few eye-popping photographs of a delivery truck parked in downtown Minneapolis promoting Kinky Liqueur, “a delightfully fruity fusion of super premium vodka“:

And my hunch — that scratching the surface of this interesting brandname would reveal a worthwhile trademark story — actually paid off.

As it turns out,