Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:16:09 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091023/0448336651.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091023/0448336651.shtml stop a small Vermont brewery from offering Vermonster Beer, claiming that it infringed on the trademark they held for Monster Energy Drink (because any moron would confuse beer with an energy drink). That situation got a ton of publicity (all of it negative towards Monster Energy Drink and Hansens), and Brendan alerts us to the news that it looks like Hansen's has backed down. And the guy behind the Rock Art Brewery (maker of Vermonster) has put up an open letter with the timeline of events (pdf) -- thanking everyone for creating the public pressure that got Hansens to back down.

Of course, it looks like Hansens only backed down in this one instance. Yet, as we noted, Hansens appears to have contracted with notorious abuser of the trademark system, Continental Enterprises, who likes to send cease-and-desist letters to anyone even mentioning a trademark name. Just recently, beyond the whole Vermonster situation, Hanses -- via CE -- has gone after a beverage review site (which had a negative review of Monster Energy Drink) and an actor who was a movie monster.

Will Hansens call off Continental Enterprises from its abusive practices?

It's great that public pressure got the company to back down on Vermonster beer, but those other situations didn't get nearly as much attention.

Matt Nadeau, from the Rock Art Brewery is asking how we can continue to use the community that came together to help him to do more to protect other small businesses from the same thing. As a starting point, why not point them to these other abuses by Hansens and CE and get Hansens to back down? After that, it would be great to get people to recognize that we need serious trademark law reform that brings trademark law back to its intended purpose: acting as a consumer protection technique against appropriation and confusion, rather than what many believe it's become: a property right and a monopoly.

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]]> but-what-about-the-others? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091023/0448336651 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:51:53 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091020/1237266605.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091020/1237266605.shtml long history of abusing trademark law for profit (i.e., getting big companies to allow it to send threat letters to anyone who in any way uses a mark, even if it's clearly not a violation of trademark), and because of that, a small Vermont brewery and a beverage review website found themselves on the receiving end of legal threats.

Apparently, the monster madness doesn't stop there. Andrew points us to the news that that Continental Enterprises, on behalf of Hansen's and Monster Energy Drink has also threatened a working actor who was in a monster movie a few years ago, and had a photo taken of himself in costume holding a Monster Energy Drink. This amusing joke photo is apparently too much for the fine folks at Continental Enterprises, who insist it's "advertising and/or selling products that are confusingly similar to Monster Energy Drink" and demand that he cease and desist.

At what point does Hansens and Monster Energy Drink realize that in this deal to outsource trademark bullying to Continental Enterprises, they've done significantly more harm to their own brands?

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]]> this-is-getting-insane http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091020/1237266605 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:15:20 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091019/0420536584.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091019/0420536584.shtml stop a small Vermont brewery from offering Vermonster beer, claiming trademark infringement. The whole thing seemed ridiculous, but now we have a clue as to what's going on. Against Monopoly alerts us to yet another, but even more questionable trademark complaint by Monster Energy Drink -- this time against a beverage review site. Writing a review of a product is not trademark infringement. However, the Against Monopoly writeup focused on the organization "representing" Monster Energy Drink and its parent company (Hansen's) -- and we immediately recognized the name from an earlier story. Continental Enterprises is a firm that gets big brands to give it the right to "represent" them in trademark issues -- and then goes hunting for anything that it can claim is trademark infringement, even if the use is clearly not infringing (such as a review site). According to reports, CE works (at least in part) on a commission basis -- where it gets a cut of whatever money it squeezes out of others. So it has little incentive to make sure the infringement is real. It just wants to get as much money as possible. I have no idea if the Vermonster dispute also involves Continental Enterprises, but going after a beverage review site is pretty ridiculous. This can't be doing good things for the Monster Energy Drink brand.

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]]> just-can't-get-enough http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091019/0420536584