Hard rock band Guns N’ Roses has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective’s Oskar Blues Brewery. The case was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. The lawsuit claims the Longmont-based brewery has been selling a craft ale and a variety of merchandise including hats, t-shirts, pint glasses, stickers, buttons and bandannas under the name Guns ‘N’ Rosé since 2018. The Los Angeles band claims to have registered the Guns N’ Roses name for a broad range of goods and services in the 1990s. The lawsuit asserts that Oskar Blues’ use of the moniker Guns ‘N’ Rosé is damaging to the band’s “trademarks, business reputation and goodwill.” The band Guns N’ Roses, also referred to GNR in filing documents, “has also successfully offered to sell and sold a variety of “Guns N’ Roses-branded products to consumers. This includes, but is not limited (to), clothing and related accessories such as t-shirts, hats, patches, stickers, buttons, and bandannas — an item uniquely associated with GNR and their co-founder and lead singer Axl Rose, who has famously worn bandannas for decades. This also includes items used for and related to the imbibing of alcohol including wine glasses, pint glasses, beer “koozies” (sleeves used to keep beer cans cold), and shot glasses,” according to the filing by the band’s lead attorney Jill M. Pietrini of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP. The band also is claiming unspecified damages, compensation and legal costs. The band’s representative met the brewery’s CEO in December to sort out the matter, but the latter rejected the band’s claim, according to the court documents. An exchange of letters followed between the representatives of the band and the brewery without any resolution. A Jan. 22 letter from Oskar Blues’ counsel Katie Bukrinsky, an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery, stated, “Our client’s use of GUNS ‘N’ ROSÉ for beer does not infringe GNR’s marks. GNR does not own a trademark registration for GUNS N’ ROSES for beer or any alcohol beverages. GNR has not made any use of the mark GUNS N’ ROSES in connection with alcohol beverages. It thus has no rights to the mark in connection with beer or other alcohol beverages.” A March 26 letter from Bukrinsky offered to help resolve the issue to avoid costly litigation by agreeing to withdraw the brewery’s application to register the name Guns N Rosé with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, permanently cease all sales and marketing of GUNS N ROSÉ beer, clothing, and other products on or before March 31, 2020, and not to use any marks incorporating the term GUNS N ROSÉ or GUNS N ROSES in the future. The brewery’s application for registration of the name was rejected by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on Tuesday after the band’s sustained opposition. The brewery on May 1 had filed for an express abandonment of its application. A call to Oskar Blues, and emails to attorneys of both the parties for comment were not immediately returned.<doc-sep>Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- As Covid-19 continues to ravage India, financial professionals across the country are grappling with an increasingly surreal disconnect between the epidemic’s devastation and a record-breaking boom in local markets.The world’s worst coronavirus outbreak has battered India’s economy and lifted its official Covid death toll to more than 318,000 -- a figure that experts say is likely a significant undercount.And yet investors continue to snap up Indian assets, fueling a 65% rally in the Nifty 50 Index over the past 12 months that has outpaced every other major equity benchmark worldwide. The measure’s surge to a record on Thursday has coincided with the fastest rate of Indian initial public offerings since 2017 and an unprecedented flood of foreign-currency bond issuance by local companies.While the combination of pandemic pain and financial-market euphoria is hardly unique to India, nowhere else has the contrast been so extreme.Bulls say the gains are justified by central bank stimulus at home and abroad, along with signs that the current virus wave may be peaking and optimism that India’s long-term economic growth potential will emerge from the crisis intact. Skeptics point to overly rosy earnings estimates and the risk of further outbreaks in a country where vaccination rates remain stubbornly low. India’s central bank weighed in on Thursday, warning in its annual report that the surge in stocks “poses the risk of a bubble.”What’s clear is that financiers on all sides of the debate are stretched thin. Booming markets have left the industry swamped with work at a time when many employees have been sickened by the virus. Some have had to franticly search for medical help after hospitals were overrun and oxygen supplies fell short. Almost everyone has at least one friend or family member who has died.“You feel numb, as if we are in the midst of a war and are losing people one after the other,” said Vikaas Sachdeva, the Mumbai-based chief executive officer of Emkay Investment Managers Ltd., who lost four members of his extended family to the virus.Sachdeva expects Indian markets to be volatile in the near term as investors weigh uncertainties around the vaccination program and the possibility of a third wave. His firm has been buying shares of Indian companies with “high quality” management, betting that the country’s long-term investment case remains intact.India’s $2.9 trillion stock market has been buoyed in part by resilient demand from international investors, who’ve purchased a net $34.9 billion of shares over the past 12 months. While they pared holdings in April and early May, buying by local mutual funds and insurance companies has helped fill the gap. A steady decline in reported Covid cases since mid-May -- along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to avoid another nationwide lockdown -- have added weight to calls for further market gains.Indian companies have taken advantage of the exuberance in markets to raise about $4 billion via public offerings since the start of the year, on track for the busiest first-half since 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.“The IPO boom is being driven by Indian technology companies coming of age with businesses doing better than expected,” said Sunil Khaitan, India head of global capital markets at Bank of America. “Tech companies are advancing their fundraising plans and financial sponsors also believe this is a good time to bring in public market investors in these companies amidst ample global liquidity.”Khaitan expects India IPO volumes to more than double in 2021 from the previous year.The surge in activity has left some financial firms scrambling to complete deals after employees were sidelined by the virus. The head of equity capital markets at a Mumbai-based investment bank, who asked not be named discussing private matters, said that at one point 25% of his 40-person group was infected.About 200,000 Indian bank employees have been infected and 1,200 have died since the pandemic began, the industry’s largest union estimated this month.Among the biggest risks for India market optimists is another virus wave. Just 3.2% of the population has been fully vaccinated, versus 39.7% in the U.S. and 10.1% in Brazil, according to Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Tracker.The Indian economy’s recovery from last year’s recession is already showing signs of sputtering. The country lost 10 million jobs in May, according to private research firm Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Among the 40 companies in the Nifty 50 index that have posted quarterly results so far, more than half have missed analysts’ estimates. While India’s central bank predicts the economy will grow at a 10.5% pace this fiscal year, other forecasters including S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have recently cut their estimates to below 10%.“If this Covid situation keeps affecting newer areas and new strains keep emerging, then there is a problem for the near term,” said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities Ltd.Sachdeva, the Emkay CEO, said Covid will impact him and his colleagues in ways that go far beyond their work in finance. He’s reading “The Difficulty of Being Good” by Gurcharan Das, who writes about his search for a meaningful life.“The pandemic has brought about a change in many of us and we are more aware of things that matter most in life,” Sachdeva said. “We would though have to see if this is indeed a permanent change when life comes back normal.”(Updates death toll in second paragraph)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.<doc-sep>The lawsuit says the brewery is still selling the beer and the merchandise. LOS ANGELES — The rock band Guns N' Roses is accusing a Colorado brewery of piggybacking off their fame to sell beer and merchandise. The band filed a trademark infringement lawsuit Thursday against Colorado-based Oskar Blues Brewery, which sells Guns 'N' Rosé beer and merchandise and bandannas the group says are associated with singer Axl Rose. The complaint says Oskar Blues applied to trademark Guns 'N' Rosé last year and abandoned the effort after the band objected. The lawsuit says the brewery is still selling the beer and the merchandise. The band wants a court order blocking the brewery from misappropriating its name, destroying the products and turning over profits from Guns 'N' Rosé and other monetary awards. Oskar Blues marketing director Kyle Ingram did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.<doc-sep>
Guns N’ Roses are suing a Colorado brewery for trademark infringement over a beer named Guns ‘N’ Rosé. In a California court filing, the band argue that consumers are likely to be confused by the branding from Oskar Blues Brewery, part of the Canarchy Craft Brewing Collective, and could assume it is an official partnership. The complaint argues that the band’s brand has thus had “irreparable damage” done to it by the craft beer, and has “suffered and continues to suffer and/or is likely to suffer damage to their trademarks, business reputation, and goodwill”. It argues that the brewery “should not be entitled to continue to sell infringing products and intentionally trade on the GNR’s goodwill, prestige, and fame without GNR’s approval, license, or consent”. The band are seeking damages and legal costs. Oskar Blues Brewery has not yet responded to the lawsuit. It had attempted to trademark the Guns N’ Rosé name and abandoned the application after opposition from the band – but is understood to intend to continue selling the beer until March 2020. Its flavour is described as “sticky prickly pear and floral hibiscus with a subtle hop profile”. Guns N’ Roses continue to tour following their 2016 reunion, with Slash and Duff McKagan saying that writing is under way for a new album, their first since 2008’s Chinese Democracy. The band have faced numerous lawsuits in the past: separate claims by former members Steven Adler and Chris Pitman over unpaid earnings were both settled, and they were also sued in 2008 by German ambient musician Ulrich Schnauss, after two of his pieces were used on Chinese Democracy. The band denied the claim, saying they had been told the samples had been sourced legitimately.