Cerveceria Costa Rica (Magic Hat) Suing West Sixth Brewing

I think West 6th's next beer should be called Enchanted Cap Six Duck.

 

I would bet you are wrong. A lot of the defenders are in the KY/IN area, and it never had that strong a presence here. It exists, but the only place I remember ever seeing it on tap went under.

 

Good god, a 6 is the same as a 9???

Are we going to see metal bands putting 999 on their album covers now?

 

As far as I could tell from the letters, W6 said they were going to revise the star and then said that they had decided to keep using the original one after all. They only returned to the position of being willing to redesign after the lawsuit, and specifically after Magic Hat made the letters public - the letters that show them offering to redesign the star and then refusing to do so.

So, no, I don't think those alternates were ever shown to Magic Hat.

You've got to admire West Sixth's gumption in all this, publicizing those alternate designs now to show how reasonable they're being when this whole issue could have been avoided if they had just shown them to Magic Hat a few months ago as negotiations were ongoing.

 

Uh, yeah: they both prominently feature the number 9. If I didn't know anything about beer except that I liked the tap handle with a 9 on it (i.e., Magic Hat #9), and then I saw this tap handle, I would probably assume that the same brewery was releasing a porter. The yellow-orange 9 means their amber ale, the black 9 means their dark ale.

Just as the problem with West Sixth was using a different number with a similar style, the problem with this label is using the same number with a different style. Since Magic Hat owns the trademark on using the numeral 9 for selling beer, this one seems like a painfully obvious case of infringement.

That said, did Magic Hat try to exact monetary penalties for 9lb Porter, or stop it from being sold? No. They offered to take ownership of the design and then license it to the smaller brewer for no cost. Why? Because they didn't care about sticking it to their competitor, but they did, and do, care about protecting their trademarks.

Remember, if a company doesn't demonstrate a willingness to defend their trademarks, they can lose them forever. Considering #9 is Magic Hat's flagship beer (i.e. top moneymaker), they'd be absolute fools not to protect its trademark with vigor.

 

Why not quote West Sixth's third letter to Magic Hat, the one that prompted the lawsuit:

"we are concerned that Magic Hat will not be agreeable to proposed alternative compass designs.... Therefore, instead, West Sixth Brewing would like to continue using this background element."

This makes it pretty clear that, at that point, they had not provided any alternative designs. The fact that they have "since" is irrelevant to the claim that they were negotiating in bad faith, and that those negotiations were what prompted the lawsuit.

It seems they only published the alternative designs after Magic Hat countered their initial social media blitz by publishing the letters proving that West Sixth refused to provide those designs as part of the negotiating process, choosing instead to renege on their own idea of changing the design.

 

They didn't sue, they offered to license it to Georgetown for no cost, thereby allowing the small brewery to continue what they were doing while also demonstrating evidence of protecting their trademark so they wouldn't risk losing it in the future.

Definitely not a dick move, and absolutely common (business) sense.

 

How is protecting their trademark "crazy entitlement syndrome"? Of course they're entitled to defend their trademark - in fact they're required by law to do so if they want to keep it.

How can people seriously be mad about this, given that they were willing to let Georgetown keep using the name for free? Georgetown keeps doing what they were doing, Magic Hat demonstrates that they are interested in protecting their trademark; win-win, no?

 

I actually agree that the average consumer would/should know the difference but that matters little to the lawyers. They can, and probably will, use this as an argument and in the infinite wisdom of the American legal system, they could very likely succeed. As usual, the ones with the deeper pockets will prevail.

 

Last year at BCTC was when I first saw the West 6th Brewing logo as I was walking with a friend, we both commented, "wow, that looks a lot like the Magic Hat logo."

 

When I first saw the logo I thought of the Book of Revelations.

 

I have not read every response, but I have to throw this in. I passed over cans of 6th street recently because it looked like Magic Hat. I want to root for the little guy, but I think the packaging is definitely influenced by #9.

 

People need to calm down, West 6th completely ripped off that logo. There is no way you could actually believe that whoever made that logo didn't blatantly copy Magic Hats. Even if you do somehow believe that any owner with common sense would take one look at the logo and know its too similar to release and re design it. At first I still thought that it was lame Magic Hat was suing them, but after reading the attorneys letters I would do the exact same thing. They ripped off their logo then would not compromise on a design change. West Sixth has made some really stupid decisions here. First they release a logo way to similar to an established brand, then refuse to change it, then make everything public. Make your own damn logo and stop crying about. Instead I am sure they will be doing just that, the hard way.

 

Every time I saw the logo in someones avatar before reading this thread, I thought it was a Magic Hat can.

 

I think you are the one that needs to calm down.

The logos look nothing alike, I see it on the shelf all the time and it never reminded me of Magic Hat. Not swirly enough.

To me, the swirls are the defining feature of the Magic Hat logos.

And the West 6th is far more than #9 without swirls too, different placement of number, different font, different everything.

If it was a 7 instead of a 6, no one would think they were similar at all. People are getting sucked into the bullshit "inverted nine" crap.

 

Dying @ all the 6 is not 9 literalists in here.

 

Sorry they look the same, you don't get that font, shape, and star without blatantly copying them. If you put a 7 in that shape with that star, it would still look liked you copied Magic Hats logo... it seems that is what happened here. People would just look at the logo and think its Magic Hat #7, instead of Magic Hat #6.

 

Might be more effective to use a musical style where the lyrics are actually intelligible.

 

The star isnt part of Magic Hat's trademark.

However, I do think that is the most similar element, as both are 8 pointed. But even then, they arent that similar, within the category of 8 pointed stars.

If West 6th had put their compass inside the 6 loop, I would probably agree more with you. But where it is, its not at all similar to the Magic Hat star location.

If you think of their logo as a compass pointing west to a numeral 6, I dont think there is too much design decision left, its going to look roughly like the West 6 logo.

 

Math is hard, lets go shopping.

A 6 is not a 9. Im a literalist about it because it is literally true.