In the craft beverage world, “sail” is spoken for, meaning Spoke and Sail needs to find a new name.
That was the sudden reality that Hood River’s new cidery ownership quartet met with on March 7, just three days before they were to open their taproom at 1021 12th Street. Full Sail Brewery informed the cidery on March 7 that they had legal trademark rights to the word “sail” and told the new business it faced a lawsuit if it did not immediately remove the word from its signage, materials, and communications, both written and electronic.
The Spoke and Sail name was announced in June 2015, but Full Sail representatives stated they had no knowledge of the name and that it was the cidery’s responsibility to do a trademark search.
The cider guys relented, but not happily.
“We capitulated. We acknowledge and respect the value of intellectual property and a company’s right to defend its mark, but we feel they are committing significant overreach,” said Jeff Nicol, who owns the cidery along with Chip Dickenson, Stefan Gumperlein and John Metta.
The cidery makes craft cider on location, from local and regional apples, and serves it along with food at its taproom, and plans to distribute kegs to local purveyors.
“I guess what it comes down to is the very real hard costs that go into low thousands, and hit us less than a week before we opened,” Nicol said, “and an unknown but not immaterial financial impact for losing traction in the marketplace, and we are going to have to radically rebrand ourselves.”
“We wish them no ill will but we felt we had to protect our trademark,” said Full Sail’s chief financial officer, Mark Moreland.
The cider partners are close to choosing a new name, but are still fielding suggestions. How do you submit your idea?
“Come visit us,” Nicol said. Hours of cidery-to-be-named later: Thursday through Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m.
“We take very seriously our involvement in the community as well as the long-term sustainability as a company and the need to be a good employer,” Moreland said. “We have this unusually good asset, and any instance of someone using sail in the beer or cider category would erode the strength of that mark.”
To the claim of “overreach,” Moreland said, “It is such a strong mark, so cleanly owned by the company, I would say no, this is a case where the mark is very clearly owned by one company.
“I wish they had done their homework. It would have resolved a lot of this.”
Spoke and Sail, for now, is operating informally as “S and S” or “SS,” and officially as 12 Cider LLC, the partners’ corporate moniker. The partners are currently going through a long list of new name ideas, and while the preference is to stay with the double S approach, the new name could go another route. Chip DeWilde designed the distinctive twining S symbol and it could remain in place.
Moreland said, “The fault is mutual. There is shared blame. I think some of the communication wasn’t great, on our side, I don’t think we made a great neighborly step forward. I would rather have gone up the street and talked to (them) rather than have our lawyer do it.”
The partners had chosen Spoken and Sail carefully, as words’ invoking Gorge residents’ love of wind sports and bicycling.
“We feel there is no evidence of confusion in the market,” Nicol said.
The partners noted that the company name had been announced in June, and significant social media presence had been established, along with its appearance at events with the banner Spoke and Sail. That included being the sole cidery present at the September 2015 Hops Fest, which is located across the street from Full Sail.
The partners estimate their costs to backtrack and rebrand will total an unknown number of thousands of dollars, including the $50 fee you have to pay the state to undo a name.
Nicol said, “This came at us so fast, but for us it came down to, we can’t afford a protracted legal battle so even though we disagree with their assertions, we can’t afford it, the dollars and the clouds of a protracted battle over our head impacts our ability to get traction with distributors, and obtain financing.”
Within hours of receiving the letter from Full Sail counsel Chuck DeVoe of Portland, the cidery group had scratched the words “Spoke” and “Sail” from its windows and blacked them out on its banners, and Nicol spent the next few days redacting its documents, and going to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and notifying Yelp and other online customer review sites.
“We have marketing swag including t-shirts, banners, signage we have to get rid of, and there will be additional fees with marketing folks and other filing fees,” Nicol said.
T-shirts and coasters with the word “sail” on them were boxed up and will not be used or sold (though there is no restriction on anyone wearing a t-shirt purchased prior to Full Sail’s action, and there are a few out there).
Dickenson acknowledged that the cider partners did not do a formal trademark search, in light not only of the cost of doing so but also because cider is in the wine category, not beer, under OLCC regulations, and that the name and logo were different enough.
“Overall we’re very disappointed in how heavy handed they were,” Nicol said, “and coming to us less than a week before the opening, can’t speak to them not being aware we were present, I don’t feel the duty to notify everyone who used the word spoke or sail.”
Moreland confirmed the cider partners had asked for a meeting after the letter arrived, and received no response from Full Sail.
“It was poor form on our part,” Moreland said. “I don’t think we should run and hide behind the attorneys, and I think that’s what we did.”
He acknowledged that “as a company we should have been more attentive to what is going in our own neighborhood.
“We reached out as fast as we could. It has been insanely busy, every ounce of our sweat and is going in to making this company succeed. In this day and age with the craft beer and craft cider space, it’s not easy.”
The day after sending the letter, Moreland brought a case of beer to the cidery.
“It was two hours after we took a razor blade to our logo and we were boxing up shirts. We appreciate the gesture and probably it was better than not doing anything in that vein,” Nicol said. “We didn’t know how to respond.”
•
Hood River County takes its place in the broader cider industry discussion on March 23. As part of an Oregon Department of Agriculture grant, the Northwest Cider Association has planned two public outreach meetings in Oregon — Corvallis on March 22 and at Kiyokawa Orchards in Parkdale on March 23 — to connect orchardists and cidermakers. These events are free. They open with orchard tour and end with cider tasting.
NWCA members to facilitate the discussions include Nick Gunn of Wandering Aengus Cider in Salem, Marcus Robert of Tieton Cider Works in Tieton, Wash., Dave Takush of 2 Towns Cider in Corvallis, Galen Williams of Bull Run Cider in Forest Grove, Elaine Albrich, attorney at Stoel Rives LLP in Portland, and Emily Ritchie, Portland-based project manager with the NWCA.
The outreach roundtables are complimentary and begin at 4 p.m. and end at 6 p.m. An orchard tour proceeds, beginning at 3 p.m. Both events conclude with a cider tasting. The roundtables have been organized with the support of the Gorge Cider Society and Friends of Family Farmers.
Signups are accepted through Sunday, space permitting, by emailing sherrye@nwcider.com.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.