Another lawsuit. On Tuesday, a Massachusetts consumer filed suit against Guinness, alleging deceptive labeling and marketing. This is yet another in the long series of nationwide class action lawsuits stalking the alcohol beverage industry in the past 15 months, since the initial Tito’s suits. The case is O’Hara v. Diageo-Guinness, filed in federal court. Just four days earlier, a New York City man filed suit against Foster’s Beer similarly.

The Guinness complaint says the company “represents that all Extra Stout sold in the North America is brewed in Ireland at the historic St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin.”

This, however, would seem to be an extra stout assertion, because new lawyer Frank and I walked over to a beer store today. The store had Guinness in various sizes and shapes, but all of the packaging seemed to show the origin clearly. Most clearly said brewed in Ireland; some (such as above) clearly said BREWED IN CANADA. We did not see any packages that made the origin hard to divine. Things may be different up in Massachusetts but nonetheless, this would seem to drastically limit the size of any class and any damages. With all the Guinness on display at the local store, clearly showing product of Ireland, and labels like this, we don’t...

I am pleased to report that Dan Christopherson is featured in the current issue of Landslide. This is the magazine of the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Section. The article is entitled “Trademarks in the Golden Age of Craft Beer.” Dan is a hardcore craft beer lawyer at Lehrman Beverage Law, and he has more than eight years of highly relevant trademark experience. He wrote the article with Michael Kanach, Senior Counsel and craft beer lawyer at Gordon & Rees in San Francisco. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Even the most devout craft beer fan may not be aware of the volume of trademark disputes in craft beer today. The number of disputes is likely to increase with thousands of existing and planned breweries (not to mention other beverage producers) fighting for an increasingly small pool of quality names. While many of these “disputes” are quickly handled over a beer, opposition and cancellation proceedings and federal trademark lawsuits are becoming more common.

Below are six important lessons in branding for the craft beer industry, including the interactions between its competitors (or collaborators), the personalities of its customers, and the countless legal restrictions and requirements at the state and federal levels. Each of these elements is important to branding because...

I don’t mean to keep harping on the Tito’s Vodka cases — but there sure are a lot of them — and they are important. Because there are so many, it is not easy to keep track of how it’s going, hence this handy Scorecard. Most of the cases are slowly grinding along, with no clear winner or loser (as shown with the ⇔ symbol). At one extreme, the Aliano case went especially well for Tito (⇑). At the other extreme is the Hofmann case (⇓). In late November Judge Miller allowed Hofmann, the first-filed case, to go forward, past the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. It got even worse, five days later, when the court gave the plaintiffs permission to go into the plant and see exactly how Tito’s Vodka is made, despite the company’s strong objections.

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  We reached out to Tito and his lead lawyer to make sure we are not missing anything important, and to ask a few questions, as follows. From early on, Tito said he knew it was going to be a long haul.

How’s it going? Business has continued to be good. The lawsuits have been a distraction. But our consumer base is growing, and they have been extremely loyal. They appreciate Tito’s Handmade Vodka for...