bc magazine

bc magazine received a legal threat from Time magazine today about Ryan Lau’s concert poster. A poster that’s been visible around Hong Kong for at least a month, yet not until 4 days after the concert took place did Time allege it infringed their trademark, engage lawyers and make threats of lawsuits.

While time doesn’t legally affect any trademark claim Time may have against Ryan Lau, that it took Time almost 4 weeks to notice the artwork doesn’t say much for the magazine’s observation skills or supposed finger on the pulse of Hong Kong reporting. The poster has been online since before tickets for the concert at KITEC’s Music Zone@E-Max went on sale in September – bc’s not exactly sure of the exact date the tickets were first advertised.

Instead of a polite email asking bc to remove the poster until any dispute Time had with Ryan Lau over the poster was settled. Time threatened bc with a lawsuit and to include bc magazine as a co-defendant with Ryan Lau and Chessman (HK) Ltd.

And this was so important and time sensitive that the work had to be done on a public holiday, a nice bump to someone’s billable hours! We’ve now received the email 6 times – does that makes Time an email spammer?

As far as bc magazine is concerned the use of the poster in-relation to informing our readers about the concert constitutes ‘fair use’. A concept Time relies on all the time in it’s articles and reports.

Until Time’s threat, I’d not personally ever thought of Time in relation to Ryan Lau’s My Time concert and still don’t. Here’s Time’s intimidatory threat letter. According to the attachments, Time only has a trademark for newspapers and periodicals, the artwork is a poster for a concert called My Time.

Would you confuse beer and an energy drink? Red Bull seems to think it’s customers are that stupid or maybe they’ll be confused that Red Bull has entered the beer market, if they came in contact with Virginia’s Old Ox Brewery?

Attorneys for the extreme drink certainly think so, and have filed a complaint in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In it, attorneys – always looking to increase their billable hours – for the energy drink assert some consumers might confuse the brands because “An ‘ox’ and a ‘bull’ both fall within the same class of ‘bovine’ animals and are virtually indistinguishable to most consumers. In addition, an ox is a castrated bull.”

In reply the Old Ox Brewery released a public letter asking the company that makes Red Bull energy drinks to drop its complaint.

Hey Red Bull –

You seem pretty cool. You sponsor snowboarders, adventure racers, rock climbers and motocross bikers. You launch people into space so that they can skydive back down to earth. That’s all really darn cool. For all I know, you’re reading this while strapping yourself into a Formula One racecar that is about to be lit on fire and jumped over a large chasm of some sort. How cool would that be? Feel free to give it a try.

Here’s the thing, though. You are being extremely uncool to us at Old Ox Brewery. We are a small startup brewery in Ashburn, Virginia. We’re family-run, we love beer, and we love our community. For reasons that we cannot understand, you have attempted to strong arm us into changing our identity for the last 10 months because you believe folks might mistake Old Ox beer for Red Bull energy drinks. We respectfully disagree. The only similarity between our two products is that they are both liquids. You make non-alcoholic (but very extreme) energy drinks. We make delicious (but laid-back) beer. Our consumers are looking for two distinctly different experiences from our respective products.

Basically you are holding us hostage with a list of demands that, if agreed to, would severely limit our ability to use our brand. Demands like, never use the colour red, silver or blue; never use red with any bovine term or image; and never produce soft drinks. Do you own the colour red? What about fuchsia, scarlet, crimson, or mauve? Are you planting your flag in the colour wheel and claiming those shades for Red Bull? Do you claim exclusive rights to all things bovine? Do you plan to herd all heifers, cows, yaks, buffalo, bison, and steer into your intellectual property corral, too?

When we refused to succumb to your demands, you responded by filing a formal opposition to not just our trademark but to the very name Old Ox Brewery. Way to step on our American dream. You say you are protecting your intellectual property rights, but your claim, in our opinion, is Red Bulls**t.

We can only interpret your actions as one thing—bullying. You are a big Red Bully. Just like that mean kid from grade school pushing everyone down on the playground and giving us post-gym class wedgies. You are giving us one hell of a corporate wedgie. We don’t appreciate it and we sure as hell don’t deserve it.

Is this really what you’re about? Are you a bully? Your extensive marketing campaigns (your glitzy advertising, your sponsored sports events, your death defying stunt shows, etc.) certainly don’t project that image. Take a hard look at your “case.” Can you honestly look at our brand and say, “this is a threat to my image?” We don’t think you can. Given that, we repeat our offer: We agree NEVER to produce energy drinks. In exchange, we are asking for one simple thing: Leave us alone. Drop this trademark dispute. The only people benefiting are the lawyers.

Sincerely and Uninfringingly Yours,

Chris Burns
President – Old Ox Brewery

As Shelly commented it’s easy to get confused
“I’m just a silly girl. Sometimes I really need an energy drink and I get confused why I’m in a brewery. Wait, why are they carding me for an energy drink? This is weird. Oh wait…. I’m getting drunk from this energy drink from my tulip glass.
And sometimes I’m in 7-11 thinking I can get a great craft beer, but this can is only making me hyper…
Why is life so hard?
I need a beer.”

Tag: trademark

Time Really Not on Time with My Time!

Red Bulls**t