OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – EAA is suing three Fox Valley brothers who run a beer tent during AirVenture in Oshkosh.
The company accuses Carl, Dean and Steve Sosnoski of trademark infringement that’s hurting EAA’s image and its bottom line.
The Sosnoski brothers have run an event called “Beer Venture” near EAA AirVenture for several years.
A lawsuit filed against them alleges they’re profiting from AirVenture’s name and trademarks.
“Whether you take the Packers, whether you take any large company in the area, they all have trademarks, logos, usages that they have, and they seek to protect those,” EAA spokesman Dick Knapinski said. “EAA’s no different.”
Knapinski tells FOX 11 “Beer Venture” implies a partnership with AirVenture that doesn’t exist.
“There’s a lot of equity built in that. There’s a certain connotation; a certain trust built up with those marks, and you want to make sure that they represent, first of all, something that your equity is running.”
The federal lawsuit was filed Thursday, but Knapinski says this a much older dispute with the “SOS Brothers.”
“We’ve been working with the SOS brothers for some time to remedy; come to a resolution with some of the trademark issues that have been out there. We’ve had very agreeable conversations back and forth on that, and so this is a legal step to make sure that it stays on schedule.”
The 13-page lawsuit claims “Beer Venture heavily promotes the consumption of alcoholic beverages and utilizes female servers wearing bikini swimsuits.” It says the activities conflict with EAA and AirVenture’s family-friendly brands.
“They are in violation of trademark regulations, and so we just want to get that cleaned-up, let them run their business as they see fit, and then we can do the same, but they just have to use their own trademarks and logos,” said Knapinski.
EAA sent a cease and desist letter to the Sosnoskis a few weeks before AirVenture in July. It demanded the brothers stop using EAA trademarks and the name “Beer Venture” before the event.
Photos taken during AirVenture, included in the suit, allege the brothers continued to use trademarks and logos.
Knapinski says EAA doesn’t want to shut the Sosnoski brothers down, but it will protect the brand it’s built over decades.
“We want to be good neighbors, they want to be good neighbors and this is just one more step to make sure it stays on schedule.”
The Sosnoskis replied with the following Facebook statement:
I can’t say anything because we don’t have deep pockets like they do. They can afford high-priced attorneys. It’s a perfect example of David vs. Goliath. If they really want us off that land that we own, they could make us an offer and buy it from us? We’ve only been there since 1981. And concerning the Beer Venture trademark, we’ve used it since 2001 and they’ve never said anything about it.
That’s all.
