Guns N’ Roses lawsuit takes aim at Oskar Blues

LOS ANGELES — Rock band Guns N’ Roses is suing Longmont-based Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective and Oskar Blues Brewery for trademark infringement over the brewery’s Guns N’ Rosé beer.

The Axl Rose-fronted Los Angeles band, well known for hits such as “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle,” accuses Oskar Blues of seeking to profit from Guns N’ Roses’ fame.

The complaint, filed Thursday in California District Court, uses multiple pages to spell out in detail the band’s many successes.

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“Since the formation, GNR has achieved national and international renown as one of the greatest, and most commercial and critically successful, bands of all time,” according to the complaint. “… In addition to and in connection with its recorded musical output, GNR has created some of the most iconic and popular music videos of all-time.”

The band, according to the complaint, owns “incontestable federal trademark registrations of the mark GUNS N’ ROSES.”

Oskar Blues did not seek permission to use the name — or in the case of the beer, a similar name — when it launched Guns N’ Rosé in 2018.

The band’s business manager contacted Oskar Blues executives in December 2019 to request the brewery stop using trademarks similar to Guns N’ Roses.

Oskar Blues “in terse and conclusory terms, denied GNR’s claims and concluded that ‘its response…resolves this matter,’” according to the suit. The brewery “has refused to immediately and completely cease sales and marketing of GUNS ‘N’ ROSÉ beer, clothing, or other products until March 2020.”

The band’s complaint asks the court to order Oskar Blues to stop selling the Guns N’ Rosé, pay damages and “and deliver to GNR for destruction any and all products bearing the GUNS N ROSE or the GUNS ‘N’ ROSÉ marks or the GUNS N’ ROSES mark from retailers or distributors to which it sold such products.”