Ravinia Festival Association Adds New Defendant To Trademark Suit Against Brewery

This nonsense is somehow still going. To catch you up if you’re not familiar with this story, the Ravinia Festival Association operates the Ravinia Festival venue in the north suburbs of Chicago. When a small brewery opened its doors in Highland Park, calling itself Ravinia Brewing Company, the RFA objected to its name and convinced the brewery to enter into an agreement whereby the RFA would not object to the name or sue for trademark infringement in exchange for all kinds of agreed upon restrictions on the brewery. These included restrictions on the percentage of real estate on packaging and marketing materials using the term “Ravinia,” not organizing musical concerts, and so on.

Now, this might all sound fairly reasonable if you’re not from the area, as I am. But if you are from the Chicagoland area, you will recognize two problems with all of this. First, the term “Ravinia” comes from a formerly incorporated municipality that used to exist on the grounds where the RFA operates. It was the name of a neighborhood, not unlike “Wrigleyville” near Wrigley Field, thereby making it a geographic marker. Geographic markers have historically enjoyed very limited trademark protections, if any at all. The reality is that this trademark probably never should have been granted in the first place. Add to that the simple fact that the area also has other businesses that use the “Ravinia” name, some of which include businesses that serve beer and food, all without objection from the RFA. Despite all of the above, the RFA last year claimed that Ravinia Brewing had violated its agreement and sued for trademark infringement.

At present, this lawsuit is still going. The RFA recently amended its complaint, noting that Ravinia Brewing had transferred its own trademarks for its business name to a company setup in Delaware in order to license the marks back to the local business.

The updated complaint in the federal lawsuit between the music festival and the microbrewery accuses the founders of the brewing company of starting their business with “the express purposes of taking advantage of the name recognition and good will of Ravinia [Festival Association].”

In addition to the Illinois-registered LLCs of Ravinia Brewing Company and Ravinia Brewing Company Chicago, the 11-count amended complaint adds as a defendant Ravinia Brewing IP LLC, a Delaware-based entity incorporated in 2016. According to a joint status report filed earlier this month, attorneys for the music festival only recently learned that the brewing company had assigned trademark rights to the Delaware affiliate.

So that’s the reason for the amended complaint, but most of the facts of the case remain the same. The trademark in question is a geographic marker and the RFA has not policed its mark equitably with respect to other businesses in the area. There is still a great deal of complaining in the suit over font sizes, musical “concerts” put on by the brewery, social media “advertising,” and a beer with a musical-themed brand. There’s a lot of scare quotes in that sentence. Here’s why:

1. The “concerts” put on by the brewery are largely a person with a guitar playing some songs in the bar. These are nothing like the massive concerts put on at Ravinia Festival.
2. The font size issue occurred when there was a change in size and shape of the beer can and the brewery corrected the issue as soon as it was brought to their attention.
3. The new music themed beer was called “Key Notes” and featured a person playing a piano on the can. That both isn’t enough to make this trademark infringement, nor is the beer even sold any longer.
4. The social media “advertising” claim stems from the wife of the owner of the brewery, on her own social media page, posting a picture drinking one of the brewery’s beers while at a concert at Ravinia Festival.

And, again, this is all over a geographic marker trademark that shouldn’t have been granted in the first place. And, in the brewery’s response to the lawsuit, potentially shouldn’t have been granted for other reasons as well.

The brewery contended that the association’s 2011 trademark for exclusive rights to use the “Ravinia” name for “Restaurant Services; Catering Services; Offering Banquet Facilities” was obtained fraudulently, noting that the festival’s finance director signed a sworn declaration that no one else was using the name for restaurants and food — despite the existence of local restaurants like the Ravinia Green Country Club and the Ravinia BBQ and Grill.

The brewery’s attorney, Shelley Smith, said a jury could reasonably determine that a senior Ravinia Festival executive, like its then finance director, could not credibly claim that she was unaware of country club or BBQ joint.

“Thus, when Ravinia Festival filed its trademark application, Ravinia BBQ and Grill had been using the mark ‘Ravinia’ for twenty-five years and Ravinia Green Country Club had been using the mark for forty-three years, all without interference by Ravinia Festival,” Smith said. “It is under these circumstances that Ravinia Festival told the PTO that no one else had the ‘right to use the mark in commerce’ in connection with restaurant services.”

Whether that’s true or not ultimately shouldn’t really matter. The fact is that “Ravinia” is a geographic marker, understood not to be a source of a good or service, but as a reference to a neighborhood. On top of that, the RFA has clearly not policed its trademark against other uses of the term, and is instead singling out Ravinia Brewing Company for this sort of action.

Why the RFA wants to continue with its bullying via this lawsuit is beyond me. It can’t possibly be worth whatever it is paying its lawyers, as there is clearly no threat from a small brewery with a couple of brick and mortar locations.