Brewery's win over SABMiller was 'David and Goliath' triumph, founder says
The founder of Australian micro-brewery Wayward has described the company's triumph in a trademark dispute with multi-national beer manufacturer SABMiller as a victory for David over Goliath.
“Maybe they thought that a little guy wouldn’t stand up to them, but I always knew we were right and I wasn’t going to give up without a fight,” said Wayward's Peter Philip.
“We always believed that the opposition was totally without foundation as our ‘Wayward’ trademark is completely different in sound, appearance and meaning to their brands,” he added.
Philip's comments were echoed by his lawyers. “Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick is pleased to have successfully represented Peter Philip in a trademark opposition brought by SABMiller India,” said Russell Waters and Natasha Marshall Teoh of the law firm.
“We raise our (beer!) glasses to Mr. Philips on this victory, and understand why he considers this to be a David and Goliath style triumph,” they added.
SABMiller, brewer of products such as Fosters, Coors, Peroni and Grolsch, filed an opposition against the ‘Wayward’ trademark in February 2013 through its Indian arm.
It argued that the trademark would “deceive or cause confusion” among consumers with SABMiller’s Haywards 2000 and Haywards 5000 products.
The ‘Haywards’ trademark was filed with the Australian trademark office in 2002.
Wayward, a small brewer based in Sydney, applied for the trademark, which means “being lost, but on purpose”, in July 2012.
SABMiller India claimed that it accounts for 40 percent of the Indian beer market in Australia, but Michael Kirov, the hearing officer for the dispute, agreed with Wayward that the “Indian beers category is ... unknown to Australian beer drinkers”.
He ruled in favour of the micro brewery, stating that the use of the ‘Wayward’ trademark will not cause “confusion among a significant or substantial number of the beer drinking public in Australia”.
SABMiller did not respond to requests for comment.
