A new battle has just begun. News out of the beverage industry is that VPX (Bang Energy) has officially filed a lawsuit against Monster Energy and Reign Beverage Company for for trademark infringement.
VPX’s CEO Jack Owoc stated on his pubic LinkedIn account:
We are taking legal action against Monster Energy and Reign Beverage Company for Trademark Infringement, Trade Dress Infringement, and Unfair Competition for their Knockoff Reign energy drink. Bang “REIGNS” on Monster’s Parade and Monster’s Charade, because IF YOU AIN’T BANGING, YOU AIN’T HANGING!
The product in question is Reign Total Body Fuel. VPX said the Reign Beverage energy drinks were “nearly identical and confusingly similar” to its own “aesthetically appealing and distinctive” trade dress for Bang. The other issue is the name: Reign.
Jack Owoc publicly stated that he owns the trademark to Reign. This is true, as of March 12, 2019. The trademark was not owned by Jack (or VPX for that matter) prior to this date.
After searching the USPTO database, it was found that registration number 5107809 is for a standard character mark filed on November 16, 2015 and officially registered on December 27, 2016. The trademark was filed under Dash LLC for Dietary and nutritional supplements; Dietary and nutritional supplements used for weight loss; Dietary supplement drink mixes; Herbal supplements; Nutraceuticals for use as a dietary supplement. Click here to view the original registration document.
In the video Jack Owoc posted on LinkedIn, it appears that Dash, LLC d/b/a Royalty Nutrition assigned all rights to the trademark for ‘Reign’ to John H. Owoc (JHO Intellectual Property Holdings, LLC) on March 12, 2019 (date of Jack’s signature making the agreement finalized).
Reign Total Body Fuel trademark was filed on November 9, 2018. As of this article, it has not been fully registered with the USPTO. This was filed for fitness beverages. It appears Jack (VPX) acquired the rights to the trademark after Monster filed for their trademark.
Jack Owoc also stated on the same video that they are releasing Reign Pre-Workout Energy Drink as of that day. This Reign Pre-Workout Energy Drink is 8oz vs. Reign Total Body Fuel 16oz drink.
Reign Total Body Fuel is available in the market for purchase, but it wasn’t listed on their website.
We have not received any more info on VPX’s Reign Pre-Workout RTD. Rumor has it that it was supposed to be listed for presale on their website, but as of this writing it is not listed.
Fitness Informant’s POV
This will be an interesting one. It appears Jack bought the trademark right to Reign on March 12, well after Reign Total Body Fuel had applied for their trademark. In the end, I am not sure how IP law plays out, but this seems to be a counteraction move by VPX to deny Monster the ability to enter this market.
It does appear that Reign Total Body Fuel did release product without the final trademark registered, but companies do this all the time.
I do know, from IP law, that large companies have a whole team of attorneys dedicated to IP. They would typically do an advanced search on a word mark and return results of low, medium or high risk. I have to imagine Monster did this. I would assume, since Reign was filed under the class of dietary supplements, that it came back medium to high risk.
At the end of the day, I am not surprised this lawsuit exists. Bang is one of the fastest growing beverage companies on the planet, and the big boys, Monster, Rockstar and Red Bull are all taking notice. It shall be interesting how this plays out…
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