The battle over the Budweiser name continues...
Drinkers of Czech Budweiser beer in Great Britain have nothing to fear as the brewery gets the go ahead from a British court to continue selling the famous Czech lager. The Budweiser Budvar brewery in South Bohemia, has been locked in a lengthy battle with Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer, over the well-established Budweiser name. The trademark dispute has been going on for almost a hundred years and continues to be fought in courtrooms throughout the world.
First, to understand the dispute over the use of the Budweiser name you have to look into history. The city of Cesky Budejovice in Southern Bohemia, where the brewery is located, is called Budweis in German. And thus, Budweiser Beer essentially means - Beer from Budweis. The American brewery Anheuser-Busch began using the name in 1876 and ever since the two breweries have been looked in a number of disputes throughout the world.
The Czech brewery recently won a victory in Great Britain where the British court of appeal rejected an appeal by the Americans regarding the sale of the Czech version of Budweiser in Great Britain, creating an important precedent. Denisa Mylbachrova who is director of public relations at the Budweiser brewery explains what makes this case special in the conflict between the two breweries:
"Great Britain is quite a unique market because Great Britain is the only region where the registered trademarks, Budweiser and Bud can be used by both breweries, the Czech Budweiser Budvar and the American Anheuser-Busch."
What success has Budvar had in retaining its trade mark in the international marketplace?
"Budweiser Budvar brewery has more then 380 trade markets registered in over one hundred countries throughout the world. It is currently involved in 44 disputes against its business competitor Anheuser-Busch. In the past 12 months we were successful in South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Latvia, Australia, and Denmark."
So what about the distribution of Budvar in North American, Anheuser-Busch's home territory?
"According to a 1939 agreement between Budweiser Budvar and Anheuser-Busch the brewery can not sell its beer under the trade mark Budweiser-Budvar or Budejovicky Budvar or even mention any of those trade marks in connection with the product. That's why the B.B.N.P. was established, this is original Czech lager under the name Czechvar. Results of the sales are positive and in 2001 we almost tripled the sales plan and the sales are still growing. This year we also started selling beer in Canada."
All in all, who would you say is wining the war over the Budweiser name?
"I would like to remind that we don't initiate the trademark disputes, Anheuser-Busch opened most of the cases. Unfortunately and quite honestly we don't have any list of Anheuser-Busch vs. Budvar score but we were quite successful in many court cases last year."
So, for those of our listeners enjoying a pint of Czech Budweiser in Great Britain or Czechvar in North America, Nazdravi!
