Trademark: Budweiser Label

First Used: January 1876

First Registered: March 1886

Current Owner: ANHEUSER-BUSCH, LLC [1]

Trademark Type: traditional trademark; design mark

Primarily Associated With: lager beer [2]

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [8]:

The Budweiser Label is a significant piece of trademark history – it is one of the oldest still-active design mark registrations in the United States, first registered in March 1886. First introduced in 1876 with the launch of the beer, the Budweiser Label was ornate and designed to convey a sense of European brewing tradition, and with references to its Bohemian inspiration and claims of superior quality.

Anheuser-Busch traces its origins to a small St. Louis, Missouri brewery founded in the 1850s by German immigrant George Schneider. After less than a decade of operation, Eberhard Anheuser acquired the brewery and was later joined by his son-in-law Adolphus Busch. In 1876, Busch developed Budweiser beer after inspiration from the Pilsener style beers brewed in the Czech town of České Budějovice (known as “Budweis” in German).

The selection of the brand name Budweiser (the self-proclaimed KING OF BEERS®) kicked off a century long, still-running international trademark dispute with a local Czech brewery, Budweiser Budvar, that claimed to have been brewing “Budweiser-style” beers for over 500 years. The conflict has resulted in a patchwork of legal outcomes: in most countries Anheuser-Busch has exclusive rights to the Budweiser trademark – if you want to drink a Budweiser Budvar in the US, you’ll need to order a Czeckvar beer; in over 60 countries (and most of Europe) Budweiser Budvar has exclusive rights to the Budweiser trademark – if you want to drink an Anheuser-Busch Budweiser in Europe, you’ll need to order a Bud beer; and in the UK both companies can sell Budweiser branded beer.

Anheuser-Busch also owns some unique non-traditional trademark registrations, including for the shape and color of its beer bottles and cans and for the use of live Clydesdale horses in connection with the sale of beer!