Intellectual Property Law

Georgetown Brewery to Rename "9LB Porter" to Resolve Trademark Dispute

By Michael Atkins

Seattle’s Georgetown Brewery will change the name of one of its beers to resolve a trademark dispute.

That’s what the Seattle Beer News blog reported yesterday.

Georgetown will rename its “9LB Porter” as “Georgetown Porter.”

Georgetown makes the beer for the 9 LB Hammer bar in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood.

The impetus behind the change reportedly was Magic Hat Brewing Co., which sells a beer it calls “#9.”

Georgetown’s letter to its customers explaining its perspective of the dispute is reprinted in SBN’s post.

Magic Hat apparently offered to license the mark to Georgetown, which Georgetown could not accept.

“[W]e decided that we could not in good conscience grant someone else ownership of the name 9LB Porter,” Georgetown’s spokesperson said. “[We] felt that the brand does not rightfully belong to us to sign over to some other brewery. We really feel like it belongs to the 9LB Hammer and don’t want some other brewery owning it. In all fairness to Magic Hat …, they did make an effort to compromise. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t agree on the name-ownership issue.”

Full post as published by Seattle Trademark Lawyer on June 16, 2010 (boomark / email).