The ‘Koozie’ People Bullied A Wooden Drink Sleeve Product, ‘Woodzie’, Into A Name Change

from the booze-news dept

I’ve said it roughly a zillion times: trademark bullying exists because it works. One of the unfortunate inequities of our system is that having a large legal warchest simply allows someone to push around others over trademark “concerns” that aren’t valid. The formula for this is conistent. Large corporate interest with lawyers at the ready will police the country for any uses of a term in any way close to the corporations trademark and C&Ds its victim into making a change, which itself only happens because the victim can’t afford to fight back. It sucks, but it’s reality.

But I’ll admit I didn’t expect the koozie people to have such a dirth of chill over this sort of thing. The Koozie Group is the company that holds the trademark for the word “koozie”, which I didn’t even know was a registered mark. I personally have always used the term generically to refer to a drink sleeve. Better Wheel Workshops makes drink sleeves out of wood and named its product “the woodzie”.

Better Wheel Workshops in Newfane produces wood can insulators previously known as “The Woodzie.” The husband and wife team made them for about a decade until the Koozie Group filed a petition to cancel the trademark. 

The Chevaliers said they were informed about a year-and-a-half ago that Koozie Group, a large corporation based in Clearwater, Fla. that owns the trademark phrase “Koozie,” filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel “The Woodzie” trademark due to potential confusion.

Now, the couple is tentatively changing the name of the product to “Tree Sleeve.” The website, betterwheelvt.com, will stay and any mention of “The Woodzie” will be removed. 

“We have until the end of the year for the full switchover,” Jeff said. “We’re notifying all wholesale partners of the change in the name and rebranding products in house.” 

Now, there are a lot of other companies out there that are using the term “koozie” that have nothing to do with The Koozie Group. You can do a simple Google shopping search and find them. I would also argue that “The Woodsie” is a name and product type that is transformative enough that I have a hard time believing any real public confusion of association is unlikely. At a minimum, this sounds to me like a fight worth fighting, all else being equal.

But that’s the point: all else is not equal. Specifically, the ability to fight the fight monetarily is not equal.

Jeff said the dispute cost his family “a little in legal fees.” 

“And by a little bit, I mean quite a lot actually, but it is what it is,” he said. “It’s the cost of doing business.” 

Jeff said “The Woodzie” was trademarked in 2019 after being in use since 2015. The dispute with the Koozie Group began about a year-and-a-half ago.  The family is working with a trademark attorney on the new name. 

“We don’t want to go through the same thing all over again,” Jeff said, “so we’re really trying to scrub the world and make sure we’re not stepping on any toes.”

It’s just too bad we don’t have a better mechanism for the little guy to fight back on this sort of thing. I remain convinced that “koozie” and “woodzie” are distinct enough to prevent customer confusion. While “koozie” is somewhat creative and fanciful, it ultimately derives from “tea cozy” in Britain, making the leap to “woodzie” a trademark issue largely over the letters “i” and “e”.

Given that and the lack of policing of the mark elsewhere, this strikes me as a fight that The Koozie Group didn’t have to start. But it did and, because trademark bullying works, a smaller company did the math and found that caving was cheaper than fighting.

Filed Under: koozie, trademark, trademark bullying, woodzie

Companies: better wheel workshops, koozie group