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28 February 2017Trademarks

Distillery fires back in ‘Cowboy’ trademark fight

In a Wild West showdown, US distillery Allied Lomar has appealed (pdf) against a trademark decision that found a rival had not infringed its ‘Cowboy’ trademark.

In July 2014, California-based Allied filed its trademark infringement claim at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.

Allied accused Texas-based Lone Star Distillery of infringing its trademark by selling whiskey under the unregistered name ‘Cowboy Bourbon’.

According to the claim, Allied owns a registered trademark for the word mark ‘Cowboy Little Barrel’ in class 33 covering bourbon whiskey.

The labels for its bourbon whiskey emphasise the word ‘Cowboy’, it added.

Lone Star shot back in a counterclaim, alleging that Allied had never sold its ‘Cowboy Little Barrel’ product in the US. Lone Star also requested that Allied’s trademark be cancelled, because the distillery had ceased using the mark for at least three consecutive years.

A jury disagreed (pdf) with Allied—in January this year, the jury held that Lone Star’s goods didn’t create a likelihood of confusion and concluded that Allied had abandoned its trademark.

On Friday, February 24, Allied appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

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