When Columbia Hudson Ventures, a contract winery and bottler, ran into liquidity issues, it asked one of its clients, Old Bridge Cellars, to prepay a significant part of the price of wine to be produced. To induce Old Bridge to do this, Columbia said it would assign to Old Bridge intellectual property rights in brands owned by Columbia. Old Bridge agreed to the proposal, accepting the assignment of the “Rose and Arrow Art Work” design trademark logo.
After Columbia morphed into LM Wine Co., Old Bridge noticed that LM had begun to use the trade name “Rose & Arrow Estate” on labels of wine featuring the Rose & Arrow Artwork” mark. Shortly thereafter, with the production contract being set to expire, LM said it would be willing to renew the contract — provided Old Bridge assigned to LM the “Rose & Arrow Artwork” trademark, which Old Bridge had paid to acquire from LM’s predecessor. The tale gets more complicated, when Old Bridge realized the “Rose & Arrow Artwork had never been registered as a trademark.
The relationship between the parties deteriorated, and LM changed its name to Rose & Arrow LLC. Meanwhile, Old Bridge sought cancellation of a registration for the Rose & Arrow Estate and sought a trademark to use Rose & Arrow on wine. There followed mutual recriminations.
Now, Old Bridge seeks to resolve the matter, filing suit in federal district court to enjoin use of the Rose & Arrow Estate or any term similar to the Rose & Arrow Artwork mark for alcohol beverages produced or sold by LM.
We asked the attorneys for Rose & Arrow to respond, and will update this story when they do so.