Chicken Chain Says Stop

In 2009, the Rock Art Brewery, in Morrisville, Vt., received a letter from Hansen Beverage Company, which owns Monster Energy drinks, saying the microbrewery’s Vermonster beer violated their trademark.

Matthew Nadeau, the brewery’s president and co-founder, said one of the state’s largest beverage stores immediately boycotted Hansen’s beverages. “This is the biggest store in the state and they’re standing behind us, so we knew we weren’t going to fight alone,” Mr. Nadeau said.

That story spread on social and traditional media and Vermont’s senators, Bernard Sanders and Patrick J. Leahy, got involved. Mr. Leahy wrote legislation that required the government to survey how trademark law is used by large corporations, though Mr. Nadeau lamented that it was not distributed widely enough to solicit many responses from small businesses. The two sides eventually came to an agreement without litigation, and Rock Art continued to use the Vermonster name.

Chick-fil-A sent Mr. Muller-Moore a warning once before, in 2006, but did not pursue that matter. Now, Mr. Muller-Moore and Mr. Richardson are awaiting a response from the company, and they plan to continue with their trademark application.

In a statement, Chick-fil-A said, “We must legally protect and defend our ‘Eat mor chikin’ trademarks in order to maintain rights to the slogan.”

read more : http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/us/eat-more-kale-t-shirts-challenged-by-chick-fil-a.html

 

Chinese Trademark Office Refuses Registration for “FRACOGNAC” Mark

The Chinese Trademark Office refusal to register Shenzhen Ying Jun Wine Company’s mark “FRACOGNAC” because it is a geographic indicator continues a tradition of stringent registration standards in geographical indicators despite China’s sometimes lax enforcement in other areas.

China, a country where a good’s location of origin can be as important to consumers as the company producing the goods, will refuse to register a trademark that incorporates a geographical  indication if that indication is false or misleading. The Chinese wine and spirit company Shenzhen Ying Jun attempted to register the mark “FRACOGNAC,” a mark which the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac (BNIC) and the Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité (INAO) opposed.

This is the second time Shenzhen Ying Jun has had a mark for “FRACOGNAC” within Class 33 of the Nice Convention  (Alcoholic Drinks except beer) denied. In both applications the BNIC and INAO argued, and the Chinese Trademark Office (CTO) agreed that the use of FRA, a common indicator for the French Republic, combined with the geographic indicator Cognac would mislead the public, even if the product were clearly marked with a different origin in Chinese.

Cognac is closely protected by BNIC and INAO as a geographic indicator as well as a standard of quality, a common trait among geographic indicators. Cognac is a brandy named for the wine growing region surrounding the town of Cognac in southwestern France. In addition to being produced from grapes grown in the region it must meet specific distilling requirements to receive the “cognac” mark. China has a large market for the drink, which has encouraged domestic production of brandy in the cognac style.

China established domestic trademark protection in 1979 and has since become a member of the Paris Union and a signatory of the TRIPS Agreement. Chinese trademark law prohibits the registration of a mark that suggests a geographic origin when the goods being represented by that mark do not originate from that geographic region.

source & read more from : http://www.ipbrief.net/2011/11/16/chinese-trademark-office-refuses-registration-for-%E2%80%9Cfracognac%E2%80%9D-mark/