Best Flavors, Inc. v. Mystic River Brewing Co.

886 F. Supp. 908, 36 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1247, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8033, 1995 WL 349031
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maine
DecidedJune 1, 1995
DocketCiv. No. 95-81-P-H
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 886 F. Supp. 908 (Best Flavors, Inc. v. Mystic River Brewing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Best Flavors, Inc. v. Mystic River Brewing Co., 886 F. Supp. 908, 36 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1247, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8033, 1995 WL 349031 (D. Me. 1995).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

HORNBY, District Judge.

This is a trademark infringement action in which the owner of the beverage marks “ROYAL MISTIC” and “MISTIC” seeks to enjoin the owner of “MYSTIC SEAPORT” from bringing out a line of beverages under that mark. I conclude that an injunction should be issued.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. The plaintiff, Best Flavors, Inc., owns the trademarks “ROYAL MISTIC” and “MISTIC,” with federal registrations since 1990 and 1993 for spring water, iced teas, flavored sparkling water and fruit drinks. It licenses the use of these marks to Joseph Victori Wines, Inc., a related company under essentially the same ownership. Victori makes and distributes nonalcoholic beverages under these marks.

2. Best Flavors was created in 1989 and has been using the marks continuously since then. It began with eight flavored carbonated drinks and five juice-added drinks. It has engaged in a continuous process of adding and deleting beverage products in a successful attempt to capture a large market. In 1990, for example, it deleted three unsweetened water beverages and added three iced teas. Various iced tea flavors have been added and replaced during the years since then. In 1991, it added its so-called “blue bottle” line with clear beverages in a bottle slightly blue in tint. In 1992, it added five flavors of noncarbonated juice-type drinks. In 1993, it added and deleted various sizes of its product line. In 1994, it added plain [911]*911waters, three new flavors, its “MEGAMISTIC” line of larger bottles and, in addition, a new line of energy drinks. In 1995, it added “JUMPING GEMS” (a children’s drink with suspended gelatin particles), a pifia colada flavor and a coffee cola and root beer. It is currently in the process of introducing four flavors of “sports drinks” with sports caps on the bottles.

3. Sales have grown from under $10 million in 1990 to $128 million in 1994. In the process over one billion bottles of MISTIC beverages have been sold.

4. Together with its distributors, Best Flavors spent over $25 million on advertising and promotions in 1994, and is at least equalling that amount in 1995.

5. Over seventy per cent of MISTIC beverages are sold “up and down the street,” a term that refers to a range of delicatessens, convenience stores and small grocery stores. (Of this seventy per cent of sales, about twenty per cent are in convenience chain stores and the other fifty percent are not.) Less than twenty per cent of sales are in supermarkets; less than five per cent in restaurants; and less than five per cent in warehouse clubs. For “up and down the street” sales, there is no uniform manner of display, except that chilled, nonalcoholic beverages are generally sold in glass-door refrigerators and are grouped for display and sale separately from chilled alcoholic beverages. The individual retailer controls where the products are placed, and this may be affected by a variety of factors, such as height of the shelves, particular promotion allowances, etc.

6. The Marine Historical Association was founded in 1929 as a nonprofit corporation, and adopted the name “MYSTIC SEAPORT” after World War II. It is now known as Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc., one of the defendants here. It is an internationally known and respected museum, featuring various aspects of shipbuilding and repair, the history of the shipping trade and life in the nineteenth century. Its mission is to preserve the maritime history of the region and to foster a broad public understanding of America and the sea. It is located in Mystic, Connecticut, from which it takes its name.

7. Mystic Seaport Museum has registered the trademark “MYSTIC SEAPORT” in the years since 1968 for museum services related to marine and associated historical matters; retail mail order gift and variety store services; coffee cups, beverage glasses, glass figurines and porcelain figurines; movie film and videotape featuring historical and maritime subject matter; posters, photographic prints, photographs, books and pamphlets dealing with maritime subjects; and clothing articles, namely shirts, jackets, neckties, scarves and sweaters. It has never registered the mark for beverages, although it is now attempting to do so.

8. In an effort .to further its educational mission and faced like many nonprofit institutions with fundraising needs, Mystic Seaport Museum has tried to take advantage of its wide name recognition and prestige through commercial ventures related to its mission. Starting with on-premises sales of goods and services specifically related to its historic and maritime mission, Mystic Seaport Museum has attempted to develop a historically related food and beverage line in a broader fashion. Specifically, following successful sales of root beer on its premises, Mystic Seaport Museum has recently developed a line of nonalcoholic beverages consistent with its nineteenth century historic theme — spruce beer, birch beer, ginger beer, lemon beer, root beer, and cream beer — and plans to distribute them in “MYSTIC SEAPORT”-labeled bottles throughout New England, New York and New Jersey. It has also engaged in plans to market an alcoholic pale ale reflecting a nineteenth century heritage. To that end, it has engaged in licensing agreements with the other two defendants, Mystic River Brewing Co. and Kennebunkport Brewing Company, to manufacture and distribute such beverages under the name “MYSTIC SEAPORT.”1

9. Mystic Seaport Museum tested root beer flavors during two weekends in the summer of 1992 with visitors to the Museum. [912]*912The first time the root beer was sold off the premises with a label was in November of 1994 at a one-day Boston trade show for gourmet distributors. There were also sales on the museum premises during a two-day event in December (240 to 480 bottles). The first general off-premises sale did not occur until around the second week of February, 1995. Ginger beer and spruce beer were also introduced in February; lemon beer and cream beer were introduced in early May of 1995. The pale ale product was first produced and sold in January of 1995 in keg form. It has not yet been bottled, but plans call for it to be ready around the end of June or beginning of July of 1995.

10. MISTIC root beer and coffee cola were not available for release to distributors until around March of 1995, but had been in development for some time before then.

11. At the time Mystic Seaport Museum decided to enter the beverage market, it had no knowledge of Best Flavors’ plan to introduce its coffee cola and root beer in 1995.

12. At the time Best Flavors created its coffee cola and root beer, together with their labeling and packaging, it had no knowledge of Mystic Seaport Museum’s intent to enter the beverage market.

Prior Usage

13. Best Flavors used its MISTIC marks in the nonalcoholic beverage market extensively before Mystic Seaport Museum’s entry into that market.

14. Root beer and coffee cola are a natural and obvious extension of, and a related item to, Best Flavors’ line of MISTIC and ROYAL MISTIC beverages, which already included carbonated beverages. See Boston Athletic Ass’n v. Sullivan, 867 F.2d 22, 28 (1st Cir.1989).2 They are well within a natural extension of the categories of goods listed and issued under the federal registrations.

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Bluebook (online)
886 F. Supp. 908, 36 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1247, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8033, 1995 WL 349031, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/best-flavors-inc-v-mystic-river-brewing-co-med-1995.