Justices Should Skip Pepsi Trademark Case Despite Split, US Says

The US government advised the US Supreme Court not to take up a coffee brewer’s trademark case against PepsiCo Inc. despite an appeals court’s error in analyzing the strength of its “Rise” mark.

RiseandShine Corp.—known as Rise Brewing—correctly identified divergence from how courts analyze what should be a fact-intensive question regarding the conceptual strength of a mark, the US Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices Wednesday. But there’s a good chance the error by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit didn’t impact the determination that Pepsi’s “MTN Dew RISE” doesn’t infringe, Sauer’s brief said as it ...