Current Event #3

Swig vs. Sodalicious
A battle is brewing in Utah. Swig, a soda shop, is suing a competitor, Sodalicious, for trademark infringement. A few years ago, swig started out as a small company in St. George, UT. When they began business, they trademarked the term "dirty", which denotes a special variation on their drinks. Sodalicious, a more recent player on the scene, began to also market almost all the exact same products as Swig, just under a different name. However, they also use the term "dirty" to denote the same type of mixture for their drinks. While Swig is technically in the right for being able to sue over this, is it really right for a company or individual to copyright a common word? As we saw in the examples from class, terms such as elevator and kleenex were originally brands which became so common to use that they lost their copyright protection. But dirty is a word that has multiple meanings. Can a simple word such as this really be protected? It will be very interesting to follow this story to see where this lawsuit goes.