So there’s this guy whose name is Sam Adams.
And he’s running for mayor of Portland, Oregon, and two radio show hosts registers these web domains http://www.samadamsformayor.com and http://www.mayorsamadams.com for him, and then a brewery headquartered in Boston sees the domain names and . . .
He gets this letter “Boston Beer has used the trademarks SAM ADAMS and SAMUEL ADAMS since 1984,” which asked him to surrender the Web sites.
Turns out the brewery didn’t realize this was a real person.
That last line gives me the creeps:
“Bornemann said she’s willing to discuss Adams’ use of his name on his Web sites “probably for the length of the time the election is being held.”
He should be able to use his name on his website for the duration of his life… If you’re going to name your beer after two common names “Sam” and “Adams”, uhh, you have to expect this, and you can’t be a dick about someone using there legal name anyway they want (as long as it has no relation to there company, which it isn’t), regardless if they expected this or not.