Mackensy Lunsford | The Citizen-Times

John Boyle/jboyle@citizen-times.com

Nick Breedlove

ASHEVILLE - A long-lingering trademark dispute between a tiny local brewery and a big Michigan beer maker has finally come to a close.

Innovation Brewing can keep its name and branding, despite action taken by Bell's Brewery of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The David-and-Goliath tale began in 2015 when Bell's, which makes more than 310,000 barrels of beer annually, filed a complaint against Innovation, which sold only about 500 barrels that year, mostly in Jackson County.

Bell's said Innovation's name sounded too much like the bigger brewery's unregistered advertising slogan, "Bottling innovation since 1985."

The larger brewery also claimed the word “inspired,” which Bell's has used on some logos and marketing materials within the phrase "Inspired Brewing," carries the same meaning as the word “innovation.”

Bell's asked Innovation to withdraw its federal trademark application, although the Bell's slogan is only used on promotional materials and doesn't show up on any of the brewery's packaging.

{{props.notification}} {{props.tag}} {{props.expression}} {{props.linkSubscribe.text}} {{#modules.acquisition.inline}}{{/modules.acquisition.inline}} ... Our reporting. Your stories. Get unlimited digital access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

That seemed to figure heavily into the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's Dec. 20 decision to dismiss the opposition from Bell's.

The TTAB found that the slogan in question had not been “used and/or advertised ... in connection with a single product (so) that they have come to be associated together, in the mind of the purchasing public" with Bell's products.

“Considered in their entireties, we find that Inspired Brewing and Innovated Brewing differ in sight, sound, meaning, and overall commercial impression to an extent" that confusion is unlikely, the ruling found.

Nicole Dexter and Chip Owen, who founded Innovation in 2013, told the Citizen Times in 2015 the Innovation name stemmed from their creative means of assembling a brewing system.

"Innovation is what we had to do to make everything work," Owen said at the time, citing limited funds.

Owen and Dexter said at the time that costly legal fees from the dispute prevented them from buying any new brewing equipment.

Bell's spokesman Josh Hovey in 2015 told the Citizen Times that the dispute wasn't about pitting breweries against one another, citing Bell's own 1997 trademark dispute.

"It's not so different from when Bell's had to change the name of their beer years ago," Hovey said. "They ended up having to change the name of one of their most popular beers — their Oberon summer wheat beer — from Solsun to Oberon because Solsun was too similar to a Mexican beer called El Sol."

Hovey continued, "We hope (Innovation) will do well. We want them to succeed. We want the whole industry to do well. It's just unfortunate that it has come to this."