1879

Registered Trademark

In the advertising world, plagiarism – stealing somebody else’s idea – is known as “inspiration”. And various other court breweries in Germany found “inspiration” in the highly characteristic mark of Munich’s Hofbräuhaus. To put an end to this, the brewery director, Johann Nepomuk Staubwasser, had the world-famous logo registered, first of all with the Munich District Court, and shortly after also with the Imperial Patents Office in Berlin, for use “solely by the Royal Hofbräuhaus Company in Munich”. The “wares (sic!) for which the sign is reserved”, said the letters patent, “[are] self-brewed beers in kegs or bottles”.