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ARTICLE · 04 AUGUST 2016

Who Moved My Beer? (Part I)

Lewis Roca
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What do you do when, after growing as a craft brewery for 11 years, you file for a trademark to protect your name... and get denied?

United StatesIntellectual Property
Griffin S. Lee
Griffin S. Lee
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Part I – What's in a Name?

What do you do when, after growing as a craft brewery for 11 years, you file for a trademark to protect your name... and get denied? That's exactly what happened to [LAST NAME] Brewing (formerly Dale Bros. Brewery).

Brothers Curt and Andy Dale started [LAST NAME] Brewing in Upland, California in 2003. In 2014, they filed trademark applications for "Dale Bros. Brewery" and "Dale Bros" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

A few months later, the USPTO rejected the marks based on a likelihood of confusion with prior registered marks.

This could have been a death blow to Dale Bros. Brewery; after all, this was the name they used to grow their business and which their customer base had identified with the beer.

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