Sausage-Maker Wins Brat Brawl
Milwaukee — Two Wisconsin firms have settled their trademark dispute over which one has the right to advertise its signature sausages as backyard bratwurst, on terms favorable to Klement’s Sausage Co.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller signed off on the agreement last week, barring Johnsonville Sausage LLC from ever again marketing a “Backyard Grilled Brat.” Johnsonville agreed in the settlement to abandon the trademark it sought earlier this year on the phrase Backyard Grilled Brat. By promoting its sausage that way, Stadtmueller said, Johnsonville stepped on Klement’s pre-existing trademark rights to a similar phrase, Backyard Bratwurst.
Klement received that trademark in September 2009, more than five years before Johnsonville applied to register Backyard Grilled Brat.
Johnsonville also must destroy “all labels, signs, prints, packaging, advertising, and goods in its possession” bearing the words.
