After beer giant Heineken filed an infringement lawsuit and demanded immediate action against a campaign called “Keineken”, Swiss officials confiscated 1200 beer bottles and glasses in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Keineken, which stands for No Heineken (Kein Heineken) is a protest campaign founded after the Dutch beer distributor bought Eichhoff, a swiss brewery from Lucerne, in 2008.
The campaign protests that with the acquisition “the last big independent Swiss brewer ended up in foreign hands”. The Keineken beer was brewed by “Unser Bir” (Our Beer), a brewery founded in Basel after Carlsberg bought the local brewery Feldschlösschen.
The Keineken campaign was surprised by the speed of Heineken’s action against them. According to Keineken spokesman Condrad Engler, they received a call from Heineken’s lawyers four hours after the campaign had filed the trademark with the swiss patent bureau and sent a press release, demanding an “immediate halt to the distribution of Keineken and a withdrawal of the trademark”.
Keineken campaign supporters had to drink “Unser Bier” at a party the following Saturday that was held exactly a year after Heineken’s acquisition of Eichhof.
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