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...

This webinar is today. I should have put this up a long time ago to give you all a chance to sign up. Anyway, it should be great because where else can you get some Tom Cunningham and Simon Fleischmann for less than the cost of a few rounds of fancy cocktails? The signup link is here and it’s not too late to sign up. The topic is all the recent lawsuits like Tito’s, Maker’s Mark, Beam, etc. Tom and Simon are seasoned trial lawyers on the defense side, and I will cover the regulatory issues.