MARTIN SCHWIMMER QUOTED IN NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ON TRADEMARK DISPUTE

On March 16, 2019, The New York Times ran an article titled “The Battle for the One, True ‘Fire Cider,’” about a trademark dispute between a cider company and a group of herbalists.  The herbalists claim that “fire cider” is a tangy and hot concoction which has been made for decades.  Nevertheless, a cider company, Shire City, had registered the trademark FIRE CIDER for drinks and had asked that others not use the mark when selling commercially.  In the article, our own Marty Schwimmer is quoted as saying that the herbalists are right to worry about their ability to continue to us the term:  “The trademark owner might interfere with non-trademark use, such as the use of the term to describe a recipe in a cookbooks.”  Marty added that if the herbalists could document their use of fire cider before 2010, when Shire City claims to have first used its mark, they had a decent shot of winning.  You can read the article online at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/style/fire-cider-herbalist-shire-city.html.