Ravinia Festival, Brewing Company To Return To Negotiating Table

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — The Ravinia festival says it is no longer seeking royalty payments and wants to return to the bargaining table with the owners of a planned brew pub in Highland Park's Ravinia neighborhood. The intellectual property dispute devolved from sponsorship negotiations between the non-profit parent company of the music festival and a trio of local residents who own the Ravinia Brewing Company, according to representatives from both sides.

Residents have been responding angrily to reports that the festival's copyright claim and implicit lawsuit threat interrupted the craft brewery's owners plans to open up the pub at 594 Roger Williams Avenue next month, according to Ravinia Festival Association Director of Communications Nick Pullia.

"This was never about royalties," Pullia said Thursday. "We want that restaurant to open. We want that restaurant to succeed. We don't want them to stop and desist, but we do want them to be careful on how they use that brand that we've worked so hard to build."

The brewing company and music festival had been in the midst of discussing a possible sponsorship agreement involving a special run of beer for the 2018 festival season. While its owners expected to receive some paperwork kinvolving that limited collaboration, they said they were surprised to receive a far broader licensing proposal that their lawyer described as "overreaching."

Pullia said the Highland Park City Council and the festival have been receiving complaints since the Ravinia Neighbors Association disclosed the dispute to the public over the weekend.

Now, he said, the festival just wants to get back to the "friendly place" of negotiations to find a way to resolve trademark questions.

The brewing company's owners say the want to see something in writing assuring them that the festival won't sue them before they proceed with plans to open.

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering is the honorary chair of the festival, along with Gov. Bruce Rauner. She said she hopes the two parties can settle the matter amicably and move forward.

"We're supportive of new businesses and we've been eagerly awaiting the opening of this new restaurant," she said. "We've known for – what, a year? – these guys have been trying to get something off the ground in Ravinia Business District."

Ravinia Brewing Company is made up of three active partners, Kris Walker, David Place and Brian Taylor, and currently two full-time employees, although its owners said they hope to hire many more if they eventually end up opening.

Rotering described her role with the festival as purely ceremonial. She said she does not attend any board meetings or official events. In fact, her only encounter with the governor and his wife came when they ran into each other while both attending a 2015 Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett show, remembered the mayor and Democratic attorney general candidate.

City Manager Ghida Neukirch said the dispute solely concerned potential similarities between the logos of the two brands, as she understood it.

But a look at the licensing agreement proposed by the festival shows it was far broader, containing clauses that could have left the festival with full ownership control of the microbrewery’s brand and assets.

Neukirch confirmed the brew pub had received complete city approval for its construction, licensing and other permitting requirements.

Plans for the brew pub's signage were first approved by the planning commission in April 2017. Renderings and planning documents showing the logo were visible on the City of Highland Park website.

In Pullia's statement Thursday, he said there has been "brand confusion" with the brewery, although he was unable to specify to Patch who has been confused – or when. He mentioned receiving a media inquiry from a radio personality at some point in January, but said that was not the only instance.

Pullia declined to provide any details Thursday, suggesting it had not been cleared with his legal team. He said was not aware when the festival's attorneys learned of the brewery's trademark, but he suggested it was possible people had been mixing up the two brands for a while before the festival became aware.

"We knew that there was going to be a Ravinia Brewing Company on Roger Williams with a restaurant attached to it, but I had no idea that they were brewing beer already," said the festival's head of marketing and public relations. "Why would I know?"

Rotering and Neukirch recalled first becoming familiar with the microbrewery from its presence at the district's Food Truck Thursday events held during the summer of 2017.

In the summer of 2016, the brewing company also participated in the Ravinia District's Artisan Market event.

So how did it come to this?

The current incarnation of the Ravinia Festival, the oldest outdoor music festival in the county, has been around since the 1930s, but Ravinia has been the name of the neighborhood since 1873, when it was an independent town.

"I know that the people of the Ravinia district have a great sense of pride in the name Ravinia as a neighborhood and the fact it was an artists' colony long ago," Pullia said. "But in a lot of areas in Chicago and beyond, the name 'Ravinia' triggers 'Ravinia Festival'."

So in addition to two trademarks on the term "Ravinia Festival", the 501(c)3 has a pair for just "Ravinia." One of them is for music and concerts, the other is for food and catering.

In order to obtain it from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Ravinia Festival Association Director of Finance and Administration Bernadette Petrauskas signed paperwork in June 2010 saying the festival had been the the "exclusive and continuous" user of the name "Ravinia" when it comes to food and restaurants.

However, the restaurant Ravinia BBQ existed at the time – in the very same location the brew pub now seeks to occupy – which calls into question the validity of that mark, according to the microbrewery's lawyer.

In 2015, the owners of Ravinia Brewing first filed for a trademark on the use of their name for beer. Their initial plans were to set up the pub across the street at 516 Roger Williams, but they later determined the site at 594 Roger Williams would be better for a brew pub, according to co-owner Brian Taylor.

The festival was in the midst of developing a response when it was confronted by a "negative PR campaign," Pullia said, in a statement released Thursday.

"What had been a private business discussion has become public," he wrote. "Unfortunately, the launch of a negative public campaign and the spread of misinformation has forced us to respond."

The brewing company's attorney, Brett Tolpin, and co-owners Walker and Taylor disputed the account of events Pullia provided in a March 8 open letter.

For instance, Pullia claimed that the festival volunteered free design assistance from its staff to "help the brewery create a less confusing logo."

Walker said that offer only had to do with making alterations to the design of the beer cans of the proposed collaboration brew.

"There was never a discussion around our specific logo," Walker said. "Nor would it have been entertained."

Attorney Tolpin said the brewers hoped to wrap the disagreement quietly weeks ago in order to stay on target for their planned April opening. He said neither he nor his clients launched a negative media campaign against the festival.

"This wasn't a publicity stunt on our part. As a matter of fact, we kept it quiet," Tolpin said. "We said, 'Let's handle this just between us.'"

As Patch reported, the publicity came from a local civic group, Ravinia Neighbors Association, which became aware last week in the course of checking in with local businesses that concerns about a lawsuit from the festival had disrupted the brew pub's planned opening.

The civic group conducted a poll asking whether a petition should be launched to ask the festival to stop its "community threatening behavior." It found overwhelming opposition to the festival's exclusive use of the term "Ravinia" to "extract" fees from local businesses.

The brewing company's owners provided Patch with a copy of the Ravinia Festival Association's proposed licensing agreement and their lawyer's response.

The documents indicate that discussions of a beer-related collaboration between the festival and brewery had begun on Jan. 9 or earlier.

"I think it's clear that they also misjudged the neighborhood's desire for this brew pub," Tolpin said.

Now, he said, festival officials have been left scrambling in response to the backlash to the earlier demands from their attorneys.

Sponsorship talks break down

Ravinia Brewing co-owner Taylor said it was only after the company offered the festival a sponsorship that they were told there might be an issue regarding the trademark or brand.

He said Pullia solicited an "outsized" sponsorship of $100,000, and when that wasn't accepted, the brewing company received the expansive licensing agreement suggesting the owners would need the festival's permission to operate.

Festival spokesman Pullia denied that the failure to agree on a dollar amount for a corporate sponsorship and the proposed contract, which he described as a just "first draft," had anything to do with each other.

"We made that very clear. Whether or not they entered into a sponsorship, we would still need some kind of a licensing agreement that would give us some sort of protections on how that name would be used," he said.

To the best of his knowledge, this was the first time the festival has approached a local business with such an offer.

He said he followed up in phone conversations and offered to drop the demand for royalty payments from the licensing agreement.

If Ravinia Brewing's owners had agreed to the deal and it had been terminated – for any reason – the brewery would have been forced change its company name and turn over its trademark, website and an inventory of all its assets. The Festival Association would then have an opportunity to buy all of its stuff at cost, according to a clause in the proposed agreement.

The festival could have terminated the agreement at any time if the brewery does anything "morally objectionable" or "fails to maintain a positive public image," it said.

"The biggest concern is that they take control over the brand," Taylor said, "and it no longer makes sense to invest in a brand you don’t own and control."

And even though the festival did not file any objections with the brewery during its trademark application process – just as no one appealed against the festival's claim of exclusive use of the name for food and restaurant services – Pullia said it was still important for the festival to stake its claim and did not rule out a lawsuit for trademark infringement.

"If there is a case of infringement that you don't act upon, it kind of really hurts your chances of doing anything in the future, no matter where the company is based," he explained.

Pullia also said it part of what made this situation difficult was the use of the name "Ravinia" outside of the immediate geographical area.

And it's not just the brewery's name that has concerned the festival, according to its spokesman. It's also the logo.

"Our logos are very distinct if you compare them," said Taylor.

Pullia disagreed. He said two logos have a "strong resemblance."

In-person meetings could take place between festival and brewing representatives as soon as this weekend.

"It sounds like everybody is going to figure something out that's going to be fine," Mayor Rotering said.

Timeline

• June 2010 – Ravinia Festival Association files to receive exclusive use of the geographic term "Ravinia" for use in restaurants or catering.
• May 2015 – Ravinia Brewing Company files for the "Ravinia Brewing" trademark.
• June-August 2016 – Ravinia Brewing Company participates in the Ravinia District Artisan Market.
• April 2017 – The Highland Park Plan and Design Commission first approves Ravinia Brewing Company signage at the 594 Roger Williams Ave. location.
• May 2017 – Ravinia Brewing announces a distribution deal with Louis Glunz beers and plans to open up an Albany Park location at the former home of Finch Kitchen/Breakroom Brewery at 2925 W. Monstrose Ave.
• June 2017 – Ravinia Brewing brews its first beers for wide distribution around the Chicago area.
• June-September 2017 – Ravinia Brewing participates in Food Truck Thursdays.
• October 2017 – Ravinia Brewing officially launches Chicago beer distribution.
• December 2017 – Ravinia Brewing Company owners profiled in Daily North Shore.
• January 2018 – Ravinia Brewing and Ravinia Festival engage in discussions over a possible special summer ale release to coincide with the March 14 release of the Ravinia Festival lineup.
• January 2018 – Ravinia Festival Association staff first become aware of possible "brand confusion."
• Feb. 13, 2018 – The festival delivers proposed licensing agreement.
• Feb. 19, 2018 – The brewing company's lawyer sends a response.
• Feb. 20-28, 2018 – Discussion break down as both sides apparently refuse to accept the basics each other's position, and the building out of the Ravinia Brewing Company pub is put on hold.
• March 2018 – After the Ravinia Neighbors Association learns of and discloses information about the licensing agreement and trademark claims – and Patch reports on the dispute – a Ravinia Festival Association spokesman publishes an open letter saying the group wishes to return to engaging in discussions with the brewery.