Small Vermont Brewer Takes on Corporate Monster

[chuckl]

Brew free or die trying
Rock Art Brewery in Vermont received a cease and desist order from an energy drink maker in California demanding they abandon their Monster brew. A sign of the times? Can the little guy ever win?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbG_wo...

[Insidious Rex]

Really despicable. But nice to see SO much activity on this on the web in the past few days. I hope they can survive the fight. Hopefully they are getting some gratis legal advice/counsel from some concerned lawyers who love good beer. Lets do our part by buying their product if its available in your area and letting Hansen Beverage know what greedy scum bags they are: http://www.hansens.com/contact/

[Solstice444]

This is really sad. I wanted to visit Rock Art when I was recently visiting a bunch of New England breweries, but they didn't have tours the day I was up there. I did buy a bottle of their "75 and Sunny" while I was up there but haven't tried it yet. I had never even heard of Rock Art until I started looking up breweries to visit on my trip, how did Monster even find out about them? Ridiculous.

[Jim Dorsch]

I'm no expert on trademark law, but it's my understanding that a company needs to defend its marks or risk losing them.

A couple of other such cases involving small breweries:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3469/is_n43_v43/ai_13635252/

http://www.realbeer.com/library/rbpma... (near end of page)

[chuckl]

you're probably right; there's likely a corporate justification for doing this. But there has to be a more civilized solution than threatening to litigate a small company into bankruptcy. I'm not a patent lawyer either, but where's the justice if there's no real infringement, as the video implies, and yet the deep pockets litigant can simply prolong the process until the small company can't afford to continue the fight?

[niquejim]

Here'a a nice article about it
http://www.kcworthog.com/2009/10/wher...

[Jim Dorsch]

Peter Egelston's blog post, which the page above links to, is very interesting.

http://smuttynosetavern.blogspot.com/...

[MOREKASHA]

Sometimes, the reverse is true. Pete's Wicked Ale & Spuds MacKenzie. Boards Head Meats & whatever Portland Brewery.

[Solstice444]

Those cases make more sense at least b/c they were involving breweries only. It seems silly for Monster to claim that people would ever confused the Vermonster beer with their energy drink. There is a Facebook page about it that provides more info, and I can actually see where Monster is coming from to a small extent, but then I'm not sure why they never went after any other breweries that have drinks with Monster in their name (Brooklyn's Monster Ale, for example).

[chuckl]

I understand Monster might be releasing its own beer -- a truly scary thought -- so that might have something to do with the timing.

[chuckl]

Seems as if Monster might be backing off:

http://www.rockartbrewery.com/

[TongoRad]

For all those who have been following this story for the past few weeks, and/or have made your opinion known to the powers that be- Rock Art has announced on its home page that the Vermonster has been saved (a full statement is coming soon)! Victory!
http://www.rockartbrewery.com/

[Jim Dorsch]

Another perspective:

http://www.beerscribe.com/2009/10/22/...