A Midlothian based non-alcoholic brewery, Jump Ship Brewing (“Jump Ship”), has issued proceedings against well-known pub chain, BrewDog, for alleged IP infringement.
Jump Ship claim BrewDog has copied the name of one of its own flagship non-alcoholic beers. Jump Ship launched its 0.5% chuckleberry sour beer, named “Shore Leave”, in 2022. Just over a year later, BrewDog released designs for its own drink by the same name.
Jump Ship is now taking action against BrewDog at the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (“IPEC”), with the aim of preventing BrewDog from using the Shore Leave name. To complicate matters further, BrewDog in fact registered a “SHORE LEAVE” trade mark at the IPO in March of this year.
BrewDog had offered Jump Ship a collaboration in return for its cessation of the action in IPEC, however Sonja Mitchell, founder of Jump Ship, said that any potential collaboration “did little to clear up any of the confusion in our beers having the same name, when actually what we want to do at this point is put a clear distance between our two brands.”
A spokesperson for BrewDog said of the matter “As the registered owner of the Shore Leave trademark in the UK, we are obviously surprised at this action, but also disappointed. Ms Mitchell might have challenged our trademark application months ago as is standard practice, but chose not to.” It remains to be seen how IPEC will deal with the matter.
This case comes as a stark reminder that trade marks are registerable in the UK on a first to file basis.
If you have any questions on the above, please do not hesitate to contact the team at McDaniels Law on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com.
