Brewery In Wales Changes Name Of 2 Beers After Fight With Hugo Boss

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For some time now we've discussed in a series of posts the trademark fallout that has hit the craft brewing industry. With the explosion of this industry throughout the world, the once-congenial attitude breweries had towards intellectual property concerns has slipped away, replaced by both aggression when it comes to protecting IP and the threat of aggressive action from those outside the industry, given the amount of money being made in brewing. It's been sad to see and it has frankly led to some of the silliest IP disputes I've ever seen.As in any other industry, however, the truly frustrating stories when it comes to trademark disputes in the brewing business involve those outside the industry initiating conflict where it doesn't belong. The most recent example of this is Boss Brewing having to change the name of a couple of its beers after being bullied by Hugo Boss, the upscale clothier.

As reported by Wales Online, Boss Brewing, which was founded in 2014, received a cease and desist letter from high-end fashion retailer Hugo Boss after applying to trademark its brand.According to records published by the Intellectual Property Office, two Boss Brewing trademarks were taken out in October 2018 in a process which usually costs around £300. However, the brewer was instead required to pay almost £10,000 in legal fees during a four-month battle.Co-owner of the business, Sarah John, told Wales Online that Hugo Boss was “adamant they wanted to stop the name” from being trademarked. The company told John that it owned the Boss trademark in most of the world, but that it did not own rights to it in relation to alcohol.

A compromise was eventually reached, whereby Boss Brewing was required to change the name of two of its beers. Boss Black, a 5% ABV stout, has become Boss Brewing Black, and Boss Boss, a 7.4% ABV double IPA, is now Boss Bossy.The brewer is also forbidden from selling its branded clothing, which include hats and t-shirts.John added: “We’ve got pallet loads of Boss Black which we are going to have to go through and change the labels of, which will be of great expense and time for a small brewery. This has been a horrible experience, and so stressful. We have worked so hard to create all of this and what should have been a simple process ended up making us question whether everything was going to be OK going forward in the future and whether we were going to lose everything."

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Top University Of California Scientists Tell Elsevier They'll No Longer Work On Elsevier Journals

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Last week we highlighted the ongoing dispute between academic publishing giant Elsevier and the University of California (UC) system. Earlier this year, UC cancelled its contract with Elsevier, after the publishing giant -- which gets nearly all of its content and labor for free, but charges insane prices for what is often publicly funded research -- refused to lower prices or to work with the UC system on moving to an open access approach. Last week, we covered how Elsevier had emailed a bunch of UC folks with what appeared to be outright lies about the status of negotiations between the two organizations, and UC hit back with some facts to debunk Elsevier.Perhaps Elsevier is getting antsy because a bunch of UC scientists have sent an open letter to Elsevier, saying they will no longer do editorial work for any Elsevier publications until this dispute gets worked out.

Among the signatories of the letter are Jennifer Doudna, co-inventor of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, and Elizabeth Backburn, co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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