Judge sides with Logboat in trademark dispute, ending lawsuit

A federal judge sided with Logboat Brewing Company in a trademark dispute with a Maine-based brewery.

Judge Nanette Laughrey ruled that Logboat’s use of the brand name Shiphead would not cause confusion with any beer put out by Shipyard Brewing Company out of Portland, Maine.

Shipyard sued Logboat in 2017 over its use of nautically-themed pictures on its Shiphead Ginger Wheat beer. Officials with the company said they asked Logboat several times to change the name, claiming it would cause shoppers confusion with the beers it’s sold with the “-head” suffix.

Laughrey wrote that the terms used by both companies weren’t so similar as to cause confusion.

“No reasonable juror could conclude that the terms ‘yard’ and ‘head’ independently are similar in look or sound, outside of the negligible fact that they both end with the letter ‘d,'” Laughrey wrote. “The only real similarity between Shipyard and Shiphead Ginger Wheat is ther term ‘ship,’ and Shipyard has admitted that ‘ship’ is a generic term, not subject to trademark protection.”

Laughrey also ruled that there was little competition geographically between the two companies in Missouri. Shipyard, which started in 1992, primarily sells beer in the New England area, and has only sold 2,250 cases of beer in the last two years in Missouri. Officials with the Columbia-based Logboat, which trademarked the Shiphead logo in 2014, said they have no plans to sell beer outside Missouri.

Shipyard also sued Logboat CEO Tyson Hunt on accusations that he directed a slew of negative reviews on the company’s Facebook page after it filed the lawsuit. The judge dismissed that claim earlier this year.