REGINA, SK – The Regina Leader-Post reports that District Brewing has received opposition to a trademark filing for its Müs Knuckle Lager from Moosehead Breweries, with the latter company claiming that the “Müs” portion of the name is similar enough to “Moose” to cause consumer confusion.
District Brewing president Jay Cooke tells the paper that the brewery “did our due diligence at the onset when registering the name Müs Knuckle, so this legal statement of opposition certainly caught us by surprise. Furthermore, the trademark office did not identify any conflicting concerns with the name.”
Moosehead has a long history of enforcing its trademark claims to the words “Moosehead” and “Moose” in beer branding, with one of the more recent examples being a request to Stack Brewing to change the names of its Friendly Moose and Angry Moose brands.
While Stack and others have complied to these past requests, Cooke says that District feels that the made-up word “Müs” is different enough from “Moose” to not cause confusion, and that the brewery plans to “send out a letter out to Moosehead, basically a counterclaim, saying they don’t have a case.