Trademark Enforcement in the Social Media Age

Attorneys in general, and trademark attorneys in particular, have a reputation for heavy handedness. The traditional weapon of choice for these legal pugilist has been, and continues to be, ye olde cease and desist letter. A long, unnecessarily wordy letter sprinkled with “without authorization”‘s and “reserves all rights and remedies”‘s and other thinly veiled and not-so-thinly veiled threats of legal action. There are times when the traditional cease and desist letter is acceptable – Nay! – all but necessitated! But attorneys with an eye on their client’s business goals understand that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all enforcement communication. Indeed, the trademark tomes are jammed to the brim with tales of trademark owners whose actions have earned them the alleged label of a “trademark bully.”

But Bud Light’s recent dispute with a local Minneapolis brewery was just the opposite. Instead of creating a public relations nightmare, fanning the flames of “Big Beer” versus “Craft Beer,” Bud Light turned a trademark dispute into an advertising boon! The issue involved Bud Light’s newly adopted advertising tagline DILLY DILLY, which appeared in a Bud Light commercial earlier this year. Modist brewery chose to name its new Mosaic Double IPA “DILLY DILLY.” At the moment, the beer is still posted on the Modist Brewing website. The companies reached a friendly agreement and Bud Light even offered Modist two free tickets to the Super Bowl (which, coincidentally, will be in Minneapolis). And then, like a foam cherry on top, Bud Light hired an actor to visit the Modist taproom and “deliver” a cease and desist message from a scroll in medieval tongue. Modist plans to exhaust its current supply and then, if the beer is brewed again, use a different name. Even if the beer comes back as a new name, Modist will still have Ye Olde Scroll, which Modist has hung in its taproom.

In this instance, everyone seems to win. Bud Light received favorable press coverage throughout the country on the issue and put all other breweries on notice of its claimed rights in DILLY DILLY tagline. Modist received some great free publicity, two months ahead of the biggest sports party in the United States. I have to assume there will be more than just a handful of beer drinkers coming for Super Bowl festivities, wanting to go to the Dilly Dilly brewery and get a picture with Ye Olde Scroll.

Scrolls won’t be the next big thing in trademark enforcement. However, this is another example of how creative legal approaches can not only resolve a problem more efficiently, but end up creating other benefits for your business or clients. And with the number of breweries and beers expanding at an exponential rate the last few years, the industry will need to continue to find creative solutions to these problems. It’s great to see even the big players in the industry recognize this need.

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