The Fifth Circuit revived Clase Azul’s trademark claims against Casa Azul. The decision explains why different packaging and prices do not resolve whether customers believe bottled tequila and canned cocktails come from the same company.
Your beer just arrived at Joe’s Bar. Why should a truthful social post require a second retailer? Authentic Beverages supplies a First Amendment argument, and today’s state and federal rules show where suppliers and distributors should press it.
Constellation seeks to stay CDC’s injunction and proceed toward termination. Colorado’s limits on altering appealed orders, the arbitration process, and the disputed contractual damages cap complicate that exit strategy.
The Missouri hemp lawsuit ended in dismissal, but its reasoning leaves important questions for Illinois. We examine the shared plaintiff, the standing analysis, and the difference between stricter THC rules and restrictions favoring local production under the Farm Bill and dormant Commerce Clause.
Illinois officials agreed to pause Hemp Act enforcement against the plaintiffs and identified association members through November 19. Their lawsuit challenges restrictions they say protect Illinois cannabis licensees from interstate competition. The Farm Bill permits stricter state rules, but the market-access question deserves a closer look.
Thirty-three years of distribution could not save BeerMart after employees concealed the age of fifty-one cases of Schlitz. This Throwback Friday examines the Seventh Circuit decision, contrasting freshness disputes, and contract terms that help brewers and distributors keep stale beer from becoming a termination fight.
An inoperative pizza oven triggered a ten-day license suspension for Bogle. The court’s rejection of California’s theory offers suppliers and distributors practical lessons in documenting retail promotions and challenging unsupported trade-practice charges.
Grapes get a vintage. Apples get a labeling restriction. Garden Path’s challenge to TTB’s cider rules ended over administrative exhaustion, leaving the First Amendment question unanswered. The filings offer lessons for producers seeking to put truthful harvest-year information on their labels.
Judge Sunshine Sykes takes on the Fifth Circuit’s approach to cannabis advertising and the First Amendment. Her thoughtful preliminary injunction opinion examines the same-sovereign theory, consumers’ rights to commercial information, and why federal cannabis prohibition should not automatically end the constitutional inquiry. Read the opinion, appellate briefs, and access the Ninth Circuit oral argument.
Sutter Home won twice in its effort to block El Bandido Yankee’s trademarks. Then the Ninth Circuit reversed, explaining why the whole mark matters and why evidence of marketplace coexistence deserved consideration. The decision offers beverage brands practical lessons about resisting expansive trademark claims and building the evidence needed to defend a name.
A valuable incentive. More sales. Fewer purchases from a competitor. Those facts alone don’t establish unlawful exclusion. This Throwback Friday, we revisit Fedway and explain how suppliers and distributors can challenge unsupported trade practice claims by demanding evidence of a potential threat to retailer independence.
A termination notice does not finish the handoff. The KRIS–Winebow dispute highlights the contract terms brands and wholesalers need for continued sales, compensation, trademark use, and control of websites and social accounts. Includes sample language addressing performance during the transition and the transfer of digital brand assets.
