Is that a hint of irony in your beer?
Less than three weeks ago, Labatt Brewing Co. slapped Brick Brewing Co., the makers of Red Baron Lime lager, with a suit for trademark infringement, alleging its marketing and packaging were too close to that of Bud Light Lime. Now, the gods of fate are laughing at Labatt, as it gets hit with a similar suit that accuses it of infringing on Coors Light with a new ad campaign for its Kokanee brand.
The trademark and copyright suit, filed Monday in federal court, argues that an abstract mountain icon used at the end of a Kokanee TV spot and on the Kokanee website is "confusingly similar" to the well-known Coors Light mountain icon. Molson Coors Canada is asking for at least $10-million in damages and an end to the use of the Kokanee icon.
"We were pretty shocked," said Jamie Humphries, a Labatt marketing director. "We've used mountain imagery since 1960 in our advertising. We don't think there's any potential for consumer confusion."
The Kokanee icon is a blocky twin-peaked mountain image, with a higher peak on the right. The Coors icon is a sleekly futuristic swoosh with a higher left peak.
Experts say Molson might have a tough time making its case, as long as Labatt continues to use the icon exclusively in its TV spot, where it appears only below the Kokanee logo itself, as the legal issue turns on whether people would be liable to mistake the icon for Coors' mountain. But the suit could be a shot across Labatt's bow by Molson to prevent the Kokanee icon from eventually being used as a standalone logo.
"They may in effect be saying, 'If you were to venture beyond how you're initially using this, we're going to have a problem with it,'" said Scott MacKendrick, an intellectual property lawyer in Toronto.
Pointing to the small nature of Kokanee, which has a large share in the B.C. and Alberta markets but isn't distributed east of Ontario, Labatt said it was something of a David going up against a Goliath. "It seems we're being bullied off the mountains," Mr. Humphries said.
Nonsense, replied Molson. "It's really about the adoption of a double-peaked stylized icon," said Adam Moffatt, the manager of brand and marketing public relations for Molson. "We've invested heavily in promoting that icon in association with Coors Light. We're fighting the misuse of that icon associated to another brand." The two beers now tussling have a history of bad blood. In 2006, a Kokanee campaign trumpeted its own origins in Creston, B.C., while ridiculing the mountain heritage claims of Coors, brewed in suburban Ontario.
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