Spirit Bear

[Ken7]

At what point is enough, this one makes me shake my head.

Urban Distilleries Inc. known locally for its Spirit Bear branded liquors has come forward stating it will fight for its right to continue calling it that.

The City of Terrace, and the Kitasoo Band Council have filed a lawsuit in Federal Court to prevent Urban Distilleries from selling Spirit Bear brand products.

According to the company the lawsuit surrounds a section of the Trademark Act that would enforce a monopoly on the use of the words “Spirit Bear”.

How can someone claim they own a word which appears in the English Dictionary?

Spirit Bear is not only in the Terrace district and I'm really sorry but what gives the Kitasoo Band privalage to say it can not be used for that matter.

What next, I hope this costs both a pile of money to find out they are out to lunch.


http://www.castanet.net/news/Central-Ok ... Bear-brand

[slootman]

How can someone claim they own a word which appears in the English Dictionary?

aaaaand this lawsuit's thrown out. lol

[rideforever]

I'M NOT ONE TO CARE ABOUT SPELLING BUT FOR SOMETHING AS OBNOXIOUS AS A CAPITALIZED TITLE, YOU SHOULD TAKE 2 SECONDS TO CHECK IT BEFORE HITTING ENTER

[Queen K]

The real question is how strongly do people feel about the issue?

Will you donate cash to Urban Distilleries to assist them with their legal bills? They are asking for what amounts to crowd funding in this legal dispute.

IMO, Terrace and the band should be slapped with the legal bills for launching such a stupid lawsuit over the usage of name everyone uses in every day language.

[zzontar]

IMO, Terrace and the band should be slapped with the legal bills for launching such a stupid lawsuit over the usage of name everyone uses in every day language.

I agree, how completely absurd to put a small business through that kind of financial hardship for something so ridiculous.

Each Spirit Bear bottle has the image of a bear in partial profile and a portion of the sales of each Spirit Bear branded bottle go to the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to preserve the Kermode (‘Spirit Bear”) bears.

How horrible!

“Help us stop the province from trade marking and making money off our wildlife,” adds the company.

What's next, the Africans suing the BC Lions for making money off of anything that has the word "lion" in it?

[Lady tehMa]

The real question is how strongly do people feel about the issue?

Will you donate cash to Urban Distilleries to assist them with their legal bills? They are asking for what amounts to crowd funding in this legal dispute.

IMO, Terrace and the band should be slapped with the legal bills for launching such a stupid lawsuit over the usage of name everyone uses in every day language.

They do make some excellent spirits (husband says their gin is the best he's had), and I love their liqueurs.

I agree the Terrace and the band are being ridiculously presumptuous and the whole matter should be dropped.

[maryjane48]

um bc has mountain lions africa dnt mean squat

[maryjane48]

they should put a history of the spirit bear on theirproducts plus donate a percentage from sales to help protect the kermode bear , then i would be okay with it

[samsquench07]

The funny thing about this lawsuit, is that their has been a coffee company somewhere in Vancouver named Spirit Bear coffee for a number of years now? And to my knowledge, this coffee company is probably bigger than this distillery.

So the question,
1)why hasn't the city of Terrace, and the band ever considered suing the coffee company?

2) If Terrance and the band were successful in suing the distillery.... the coffee company would lose its name to, no?

www.spiritbearcoffeecompany.com

[LoneWolf_53]

As far as I'm concerned allowing the trade marking of words in the English language, or any other for that matter, is ridiculous.

Theoretically then at some point there wouldn't be any words left to use as someone would have a lock on all of them.

Fonts, or artwork, or something along that line, that's unique, I can understand, but words I'm afraid not, and lawsuits such as this are nothing but frivolous.

[oneh2obabe]

B.C. trademark on Spirit Bear name riles conservationists

Spirit Bear, a romantic name adopted by environmentalists more than 15 years ago to raise awareness for protecting B.C.'s coastal rainforests, is now owned by the provincial government.

Environmentalists are outraged to learn that after resisting their efforts for years to protect the rare white kermode bear's habitat, the province now controls commercial use of the Spirit Bear name.

Finance Minister Carole Taylor confirmed in an interview Friday that the province moved to register ownership of the name so it could legally be used on government publications.

"We looked it up and it hadn't been trademarked by anyone else," she explained. "That was one of the worries. We wanted it to be available for all the people of British Columbia. We have no intention of being exclusive about it. We just want to make sure it's okay for us to use it."

The province acted under Section 9 of the federal Trademarks Act, which gives public authorities special automatic rights of registration that do not apply to private companies.

Jacques Gravel, spokesman for the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, said the procedure involving public authorities is technically called an "official mark" rather a trademark.

The office had no choice but to accept B.C.'s application once it was advertised in the Trade-marks Journal, on March 29, a few days before the Spirit Bear was announced as the provincial mammal.

"There is no opposition process," Gravel added.

Loren Mallett, a Vancouver lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights, said that the province can now sell the right to use the Spirit Bear name to private companies to generate revenue.

Established companies already using the Spirit Bear name should be allowed to continue, as would environmental organizations that use the name for fundraising. Expanding their operations by adding, say, stuffed toys as a money generator would represent an infringement, Mallett said.

What Mallett finds odd is that the City of Terrace filed for a similar Section 9 registration in 2003, and advertised the official mark in 2004. "That's unusual," he said of the prospect of two government bodies claiming the same name. "That could be a problem for the B.C. government."

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... c06d2a338d

[maryjane48]

*off topic remark removed*/ferri

[Hassel99]

I wonder if anyone has TM'd Grizzly, Many corporations use it, seems like it would be parallel to this situation.

[Glacier]

The distillery had a Trademark on the "Spirit Bear" brand, and they let it expire on purpose because they figured no one else would scoop name. Oops.

Also, the reason why they are targeting a distillery and not a coffee place is because they feel that alcohol tarnishes the brand whereas coffee does not.

I have no sympathy for them. A trademark is a trademark. Pick a new name.

[msmini]

they should put a history of the spirit bear on theirproducts plus donate a percentage from sales to help protect the kermode bear , then i would be okay with it

They have always donated. I got this from the website "That's why partial proceeds from every liquor store sale and the $2 from all tastings goes to fund the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition" http://www.urbandistilleries.ca/our-story.php