On Sunday, vegan and plant-based food company Beyond Meat Inc. filed a notice of opposition in the United States Patent and Trademark Office against Eat Beyond Global Holdings Inc. The filing comes in response to the applicant’s attempt to register the designation “Eat Beyond.”
Beyond Meat is one of the top providers of vegan and vegetarian meats, and owns 10 different trademarks including Beyond Meat and other food products prefaced by the word “beyond.” The earliest marks were registered in April of 2012 and the opposer claimed that they have been implementing this mark and subsequent others in interstate commerce since the date they were awarded the first mark.
The opposer claimed that they have also spent considerable amounts of time and money to advertise and promote their Beyond Meat products and have built up a good reputation with their consumers in the process. Since each of the opposers’ trademarks was filed before the date of the applicant’s filing, they argued that they have priority over any of their applications.
Beyond Meat implored the trademark office to deny Eat Beyond Global Holding’s trademark arguing that if the company “is permitted to use and register the EAT BEYOND designation for its services as specified in the opposed application, confusion in trade resulting in damage and injury to Opposer would be caused and would result by reason of the fact that Applicant’s designation is confusingly similar to Opposer’s registered trademarks. Persons familiar with Opposer’s BEYOND MEAT mark and the BEYOND family of marks would be likely to purchase Applicant’s EAT BEYOND services as services offered and provided by Opposer.”
Beyond Meat has been connected to numerous other opposition proceedings this year in order to protect its Beyond family of trademarks, for example, the company filed a petition attempting to cancel Beyond Cheese LTD’s registration of Beyond Cheese in January, as well as Nissin Foods Holdings Co. Ltd. registration of Beyond Meal back in March.
Beyond Meat is represented by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
