Monster Energy Drinks Vs The World

BIG BIG BIG HUGE UPDATE According to Rock Art's website, Monster/Hansen has dropped the law suit. You can download a 4 page PDF file from their homepage with more info.

I first heard about Monster Energy Drinks' trademark law suit through Allyn Hane's post about why Monster Energy Drink Sucks (warning, lots of foul language in the post- the video is clean, but is also show below). What it basically breaks down to is this.

Rock Art Brewery started as a one man operation in the basement of his home in Vermont. Eventually it grew until it now employs 7 people outside of his family. To mark their 10 year anniversary, R.A.B. developed a special beer to celebrate the theme of 10. It's 10% alcohol, and uses 1 lb of hobs per barrel. This is a strong brew. So strong that he named it Vermonster and had the name trademarked in the state of Vermont.

Enter the evil overlord of beverages- Hansen. They waltz in and send Rock Art Brewery a cease and desist letter. Why? Because apparently they think that people will be easily confused between the name Vermonster and Monster. Despite the fact that one is a beer, one is an energy drink, one has a picture of Kokopelli on the glass bottle and the other has a picture of claw marks on an aluminum can. Oh, and one requires you to be 21 to drink it, and the other is mostly consumed by those under the age of 21.

Now, Hansen does not have control over the name Monster. That's a generic word that's been tossed around for centuries. Remember when Paris Hilton tried to trademark "That's Hot"? Yeah, this is about as legal. Probably less so. However, they do have the word trademarked in North America (or at least the USA- and no, that's not the same thing) for the beverage industry. The question is then whether or not the word "monster" can appear on any beverage related items. At all.

According to the trademark lawyers that Rock Art Brewery has contacted, no, the case of Monster Energy Drinks vs Rock Art Brewery has no legal standing whatsoever. However, Hansen does have the legal right to bring anyone to court. They will lose, but then they can appeal. Lose again, appeal again, file a motion, whatever they need to do until a small company simply runs out of money and has to stop fighting.

There are two ways to look at it- He could be sensible and fold and give into the corporate giant, but save his money. Or, he can stand up for what he believes in and what's right. In this case, for now, Rock Art Brewery is choosing to stand strong. See the video below for more details.

Now this situation is actually kinda funny. Well, it would be if it weren't such an aggravating thing.

Here's the breakdown. Monster Energy Drinks sent samples of their drinks to BevReview for, well, review. The beverage review site complied and actually reviewed the product, including a photo of a can of Monster. Soon after, BevReview gets a cease and desist email from Continental Enterprises. Who is Continental Enterprises? They're an IP (intellectual property) protection company- a company that keeps an eye out, so to speak, for people or companies that violate their clients trademarks. In other words, CE will very likely come after me now, because I have a picture of Monster on this lens, and I dared to mention their name.

The thing of it is, according to their email to BevReviews (which was actually worded very politely- they get major props from me on the way they state their case- it's just that they're insane and have no legal ground and might actually know that if they'd bothered to actually look at the site they were chasing), they said that their client's (Monster/Hansen) trademark was being used for advertising or that the site was selling (or saying that they were selling) Monster, when, in fact, the site was merely reviewing the product- and with CE's client's blessing.

While I believe that Continental means well in being so aggressive with protecting their clients' images, they're actually having a negative effect by not doing due diligence before sending out blanket cease and desist forms. All it would have taken is a quick scan of the page in question, and they would have known there is no case whatsoever. Had they actually read the page, they would have known that Monster was even encouraging this by sending them free product for review.

In essence, Hansen's only crime here was in hiring an inept company to guard their trademark and other intellectual property. Strange, though. You'd think that a company who obviously is trying to control their image (or else why sue over the name Vermonster?) would want to keep this part of their business in house where it could be carefully monitored and controlled.

Seriously, for any company that's looking to hire out their IP protection, make certain that you have at least one person in house to monitor tweets, FaceBook, and Google- because if you depend entirely on an outside company, you WILL get screwed.

There's a lot you can do! Let Monster Energy know that you don't approve of their strong arm tactics. Send them a message through the comment form on their site. Call their 1-800 number ( 1-800-426-7367 ), tell them how you feel and ask for a copy of their official statement regarding the lawsuit. Message them on twitter, comment on their Facebook page, vote in a poll, or vote in a Facebook poll. You can also stumble, digg, tweet, link to, or other wise spread the word about this lens.

Now, if you want to show support for the little guy, send him a message via his Vermont brewery official site, or follow him on twitter. Use the official hashtag on Twitter ( #ISupportRockArt ), buy Rock Art beer if you can get it, order their Save Vermonster T-shirt if the beer isn't in your area- or even if it is! I haven't seen the T-Shirt on their website, but they've been tweeting about it and can take orders over the phone.

Check out the links featured on this lens and show your support!

I've certainly gotten some interesting search hits on this lens since I put it up mere weeks ago, but the most common results that I see in my stats list is Monster Energy Dub Edition, Monster Energy Dub, and Monster Energy Dub Edition Drinks. The thing of it is, I don't actually drink Monster Energy Drinks. For one, I've sworn off all caffeine for the time being, and for two, the only energy drink that I've ever liked is Red Bull. With vodka.

But, out of curiosity, I did a little search of my own. The odd thing is, the only real info that I see on it is that Monster Energy Dub Edition is grape flavored, has a twist off cap, and has a wheel design on the front of the can. I don't even know what Dub is! So, can someone explain to me what Monster Energy Dub Edition is?

There seems to be some confusion over all of the Monster trademark law suits. While I'm sure there are quite a number of companies that are or have been under attack by Hansen Naturals, not all of these law suits are by Hansen.

Apparently Monster Cable is another sue happy company. They've sued Monster Mini Golf (which looks totally cool- Google them for locations near you), and even Monster.com! While they've lost both law suits, Monster.com has been forced to concede to a link to Monster Cable on the bottom of their website. Supposedly, they're also demanding a $100 monthly fee from Monster Mini Golf for use of the name Monster! Ridiculous, I say!

Hm... maybe a second lens is forthcoming.