Anheuser Busch Inbv: Understanding International Property Law

In the instance of the legal environments surrounding Anheuser Busch InBev, one particular situation that the company is currently addressing is the issue of the “Budweiser” trademark For more than a century, the Budweiser brand beer has long been recognized by its respectable logo that has been on both the cans and bottles for years. There has been some speculation in the global arena about the legitimacy of the trademark and its natural origin which according to an article entitled “Understanding International Property Law” began in the Czech Republic many years before Anheuser Busch first began production in the United States (Bird, 2006).

Despite the company's long reign of prosperity within the beer brewing business as well as certain aspects of international law that must be recognized, Anheuser Busch InBev is not immune and will have to address any contentious issues that are brought forth regarding potential trademark infringement (Carter, 1997). The same article goes on to talk about how a notable Czech brewery “Budejovicky Budvar” has been in a legal battle with the American brewing company every since Anheuser Busch was founded in St. Louis, Missouri in the late 1800's (Bird, 2006). Based on the claim of the small Czech brewery, Anheuser Busch has no right to use the name “Budweiser” being that the small brewery had long used the name for beer that was brewed centuries before Anheuser Busch gave their flagship beer the exact same name.

One of the barriers that I noticed in this dilemma between Anheuser Busch InBev and Budejovicky Budvar is that despite a lot of pragmatic attempts on both sides to come to a peaceful resolution regarding the rights to use the name “Budweiser”, there appears to be no end in sight...

... middle of paper ...

...ment of Justice implied that because Anheuser Busch InBev acquired Modelo, the brewery now has a near monopoly of the beer that that is bought and sold within the United States. Both the Department of Justice and Anheuser Busch after much deliberation, were able to negotiate and agree to give privilege brewing rights for Modelo products to a third party brewing company. The federal government went on to argue that if only one brewery, such as Anheuser Busch InBev dominated and held a monopoly on beer production, then the customer would be force to pay a much higher price as result. “Monopolizing” is talked about in this weeks chapter in which Carter describes that most countries, including the United States, have some sort of oversight on the production and pricing of certain goods within the marketplace that may be scarce but in high demand by the population.