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Canada’s largest Independent beer company, Moosehead Breweries Limited, has entered into yet another Moose vs Moose legal dispute, this time with a small Vermont brewery.
Last April we reported that a Saint John, New Brunswick-based Canadian major, had swooped down upon what was then, Mooselick Brewery and informed them that they viewed the New Hampshire-based brewery’s use of the word “moose” in their branding to be potentially libelous trademark Infringement.
To avoid a consequential meltdown with the Canadian ‘independent’ whose beers are widely distributed in the US, Mooselick changed its name to Granite Roots thus diffusing a potentially disastrous international brewing conflict with their contentious neighbor to the north.
And now it appears that Moosehead Breweries is in the litigation game again, having reportedly filed suit last week in federal court in Vermont, this time against the Hop’n Moose Brewing Co.
The issue this time around is not about the use of the word, moose, but over the American brewery’s use of a particular moose image in their logo and marketing campaigns.
According to the VT Digger, the lawsuit contends that the Canadian company has used “The Moosehead mark” since at least 1931 in connection with its ale, beer, stout, porter and lager, and from the 1970s with its other consumer products, such as drinking glasses and T-shirts.
Moosehead further argues that the company “has made repeated and numerous demands to the Hop’n Moose Co. to stop using the moose image, to no avail.” And that inaction led to last week’s court filing in Vermont.
Given Moosehead Breweries Limited’s recent history and litigious fervor, it is American Craft Beer’s position that US breweries should permanently ‘cease and desist’ from even thinking about referencing or imaging your brewery with anything ‘moose.’
Or you may risk facing off against a ‘fiercely independent’ Canadian brewery that’s been around since 1867, and have shown themselves to not hesitate to defend their name and image in US court…
