LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The red wax seal atop a Maker’s Mark bottle makes the bourbon stand out on store shelves. Whether the bourbon company can keep that distinction is up to a panel of three federal judges.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday stepped into the sticky arguments over whether Maker’s Mark can keep a trademark on the wax seal and enforce an injunction stopping another liquor company from using a similar top.
Maker’s Mark won an order in 2010 awarding it exclusive rights to the dripping wax seal. U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II in Louisville granted Maker’s Mark an injunction prohibiting any other company from using a similar seal and look, saying the bourbon maker held a valid trademark.
The order ends a seven-year-long lawsuit between Fortune Brands, which owns Maker’s Mark, and London-based Diageo North America and Casa Cuervo of Mexico, which used a dripping red wax seal on special bottles of its Reserva tequila. The court gave no timeline for deciding the case.
“What they have here is a competitive desire to use the wax, not a competitive need to use wax,” said Maker’s Mark attorney Edward T. Colbert, brother of comedian Stephen Colbert. The Associated Press
