The trademark battle between Stone Brewing and Charlotte-based Sycamore Brewing continues as the country’s ninth largest craft brewer filed a counterclaim alleging that Sycamore has “stolen” the “Keep It Juicy” trademark it claims Stone has no right to use.
The counterclaim, which Stone filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, alleges that Sycamore’s complaint against Stone “is a sham” and that the much smaller craft brewer stole the “Keep It Juicy” tagline from Stratford, Connecticut-based Two Roads Brewing.
“In its complaint, subsequent filings to the court and statements made at oral argument, Sycamore has repeatedly and wrongly claimed that it has the ‘exclusive’ right to use ‘Keep It Juicy’ in connection with the sale and distribution of craft beer, such that Stone somehow ‘stole’ that phrase from Sycamore by using it on its own packaging,” Stone wrote.
“But what Sycamore did not inform the court when it filed its complaint or sought an injunction against Stone – and what it did not tell the USPTO [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] when it sought to wrongly secure a trademark for ‘Keep It Juicy’ – is that the exact phrase has been used in the industry for years to describe craft beers,” it continued.
Stone is asking the court to order the USPTO to cancel Sycamore’s trademarks.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Whitney granted a nationwide injunction against Stone’s use of the phrase, which Stone appealed.
Sycamore filed its original complaint against Stone on April 6. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) registered Sycamore’s “Keep It Juicy” tagline in the beer class on August 24, 2021. Sycamore first used the tagline on packaging for its Juiciness IPA in September 2020. Stone Hazy IPA launched the week of August 15, 2021.
In its counterclaim, Stone notes that Two Roads has been using “Keep It Juicy” on cans of juicy IPA series since 2017, “years before Sycamore began using the phrase.” (emphasis Stone’s) Stone also referred to several Two Roads social media posts that use the phrase and pointed out that “Two Roads Brewing is not a small, unknown brewery that may have reasonably escaped Sycamore’s attention while Sycamore was performing diligence on whether it could properly register the phrase.”
In addition to Two Roads’ use of the phrase on packaging, Stone also found two uses of “Keep It Juicy” as a beer name: Delaware-based Blue Earl Brewing released Keep It Juicy IPA in 2019, and California-based Blue Note Brewing released Keep It Juicy apricot sour in 2021.
In its prayer for relief, Stone is asking the court to order the USPTO to cancel Sycamore’s trademarks for “Keep It Juicy” and “Juiciness,” declare that Stone has the right to use “Keep It Juicy” in connection with its Hazy IPA, dismiss Sycamore’s claims with prejudice, and require that Sycamore pay for Stone’s attorneys’ fees and costs. Stone also requests that the $50,000 cash bond Sycamore posted to put the injunction into effect last month be transferred to Stone.
Sycamore recently asked the court to hold Stone in contempt for failing to comply with the injunction by not doing enough to cover “Keep It Juicy” on its packaging.