The Long and Winding Road to a rebrand

In my last article, I looked at how trade mark disputes are becoming an increasingly important issue for UK breweries, particularly those with strong cask ale heritage and carefully built reputations. The focus there was on protecting brewery names, branding and goodwill in an increasingly crowded market.

A recent story involving a beer called “John Lemon” is a very good example of how those issues play out in the real world, and why breweries should think carefully before assuming that a clever pun or cultural reference is legally harmless.

According to reports in The Guardian, a small French brewery was forced to stop selling a lemon and ginger beer called “John Lemon” after legal action connected to Yoko Ono and the Lennon estate. The branding was intended as a playful nod to John Lennon, but the legal response was anything but playful. 

From a brewing perspective, it is easy to see how this sort of thing happens. Craft beer and cask ale culture has always embraced humour, wordplay, and references that consumers instantly recognise. A witty pump clip or tongue-in-cheek beer name can become part of a brewery’s identity overnight.

The difficulty is that trade mark law tends not to care whether something was intended as a joke. This is often the point where breweries come unstuck.

The John Lemon case is a useful reminder that the legal test is not whether something is amusing or original, but whether it creates an association with an existing brand or reputation in a way that infringes protected rights.

Importantly, you do not need to copy something exactly to create legal risk.

“John Lemon” is obviously not “John Lennon”, but trade mark disputes are rarely decided by looking at spelling alone. The broader commercial impression matters: how something sounds, what it brings to mind, and the context in which consumers encounter it.

That becomes particularly relevant in the brewing sector, where branding is rarely limited to a name on a spreadsheet. Pump clips, label artwork, typography and imagery all contribute to the overall impression of a product.

In the John Lemon example, the issue was not simply the wording itself. The report suggests the branding and imagery reinforced the connection to Lennon, making the association difficult to ignore.

From a UK legal perspective, there is nothing especially surprising about that approach. Rights holders with valuable reputations are generally proactive about enforcement, particularly where they believe someone else is commercially benefitting from an association with a well-known name or image. That matters because the brewing industry is particularly exposed to this sort of issue. Beer branding often borrows from music, film, politics, sport and popular culture. In many cases, the references are subtle enough to stay below the radar. In others, they edge close enough to recognised brands or personalities that enforcement becomes much more likely. It’s fairly obvious that once a product gains popularity, the chances of it being noticed will increase significantly.

One of the more uncomfortable aspects of the John Lemon story is that the beer had reportedly been sold for several years before action was taken. There is a common assumption that if a beer has been sold openly for a long time without complaint, everything must be fine. In reality, this can create a false sense of security. Rights holders may simply not have been aware of the use initially, or may decide to act only once a product becomes commercially successful or more visible internationally. By the time the letter arrives, the brewery may already have invested heavily in branding, stock, packaging and reputation. This is where what initially felt like a harmless bit of creativity suddenly becomes an expensive operational problem.

From my perspective as a trade mark attorney working with food and drink brands, this is exactly why early advice matters. Most breweries are not trying to infringe anyone’s rights. The problem is usually the opposite, insofar as creative teams understandably focus on producing something memorable and distinctive, without always appreciating where the legal boundaries sit.

A relatively short clearance exercise before launch can often identify obvious pressure points early enough to avoid a problem entirely. Equally, where a brewery has built up strong branding of its own, formal protection can make enforcement significantly easier if someone else starts trading too close for comfort.

This is becoming increasingly important as competition intensifies across both craft beer and traditional cask ale markets. Breweries today are no longer just selling beer locally over the bar. They are selling brands online, collaborating internationally, moving into retail, exporting overseas and competing visually in crowded marketplaces. In this environment, intellectual property becomes a genuine commercial asset rather than simply a legal afterthought. Or, to put another way: the pump clip matters just as much as the pint behind it.

If you are developing new beer names, considering a rebrand, or simply unsure whether your existing portfolio is properly protected, it is worth reviewing things before issues arise rather than afterwards. As the John Lemon story demonstrates, it only takes one well-aimed letter to leave a brewery with a great beer and a very expensive naming problem.

If any of this strikes a chord, whether it’s beer names, branding, trade marks or wider IP issues in the brewing sector, I’m always happy to arrange a call – mparr@marks-clerk.com.

“We had no idea the trademark John Lemon had been registered, and anyway, we didn’t even think to check.”

www.theguardian.com/...