On September 30, the United States Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board issued a decision, In Re Amuse Bouche LLC, for Trademark Application No. 77965809, originally filed March 23, 2010. See In Re Amuse Bouche LLC, Application No. 77965809 (September 30, 2013). Scott Bibb was the Trademark Examining Attorney and the…
Category: Federal Law
A Scarlet and The Scarlet Letter: The Story of In re Steele Wines, Inc.
In July of 2012, Steele Wines, Inc. filed an application to register a mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office asserting use in commerce since May 2012. See 15. U.S.C. § 1051(a). The mark, which is pictured below, features the words, “A Scarlet 2009 Lake County Red Wine” with a woman in…
TTB to Review its Policy on the Term “Gluten-Free” for Alcohol Beverage Labeling
On August 22, 2013, TTB announced that the agency will be reviewing its policy on the use of the term “gluten-free” on alcohol beverages that are regulated by TTB. See Use of “Gluten-Free” on TTB-Regulated Alcohol Beverages. This announcement is timely because, as TTB properly highlighted, the United States Food and Drug…
Revisited: Granholm v. Heald and the Wine Industry
This blog entry was originally posted on August 7, 2010, five years after the Supreme Court decided a major case impacting the wine industry. The decision Granholm v. Heald remains important to the wine industry and provides great context for the types of legal issues the American wine industry faces on a…
FSMA: What This Acronym Means to the Wine Industry
What does FSMA mean to the wine industry? How should wineries prepare for an FDA inspection? What is an FDA inspection for wine?
Revisiting the Roads to Prohibition: The Maine Laws
One of the most interesting time periods in the American history of alcohol beverage regulation is Prohibition; but the road to Prohibition was not paved overnight. Perhaps the most significant time period is the years prior to the national prohibition on the sale, transportation or manufacture of alcohol beverages within the…
Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Litigation in the Context of Wine and the Law
The last week presented three very different stories in the context of wine the law, ranging from criminal law to constitutional law issues. The most pertinent are summarized below. On the wine law docket for the week of January 14, 2013: Chateaux Commence Legal Action Against St. Emilion Classification: This…
A Liberalization of Kansas Wine Law: Reduced Requirement for Grapes Grown in Kansas
In May 2012, Kansas approved a law that dramatically changed the regulation of its wine industry. The new state law, which spawned from House Bill 2689, reduces the requirement of the amount of Kansas grapes that must be in a Kansas wine. The bill amends K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 41-308a. Under…
What Changes are Allowed on an Approved Wine Label Without Obtaining a New Certificate of Label Approval (COLA)?
The TTB recently posted some very helpful guidelines pertaining to approved wine labels and changing approved wine labels without obtaining additional approval from the TTB. For a wine to be sold legally in the United States, the label must be pre-approved by the TTB through a process called Certificate of…
TTB Proposes the Establishment of the Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley Viticultural Area
What is the proposal for establishing the Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley AVA? On May 8, 2012, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (“TTB”) announced a proposal for establishing an American Viticultural Area (“AVA”) for the Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley in Douglas, Grant, and Kittitas Counties in central Washington. The notice…