A Breton brewer has been forced to stop selling a craft beer named John Lemon after Yoko Ono, widow of Beatles star John Lennon, claimed it breached a trademark she registered a decade ago to prevent her late husband's name from being misused.
Aurélien Picard, owner of L'Imprimerie brewery in Bannalec, near Finistère, said the lemon and ginger-flavoured beer had been sold for five years. The label featured a caricature of Lennon with glasses made of lemon slices and the words 'Get Bock', a pun on the Beatles' 1969 hit Get Back.
Picard said he received a letter from Ono's lawyers last month demanding he stop using the name or face a fine of €100,000 immediately and €1,500 for each day he refused. 'At first, I thought it was a fake,' he said. 'It was only when I went online to check the lawyers really did exist that I found there had been other cases.'
The brewery has been allowed to sell its remaining stock of 5,000 bottles before 1 July. Picard said they were selling fast, with people coming from across Brittany to buy a souvenir. He is now considering renaming the beer Jaune Lemon.
This is not the first time Ono has taken legal action over a product named John Lemon. In 2017, she halted the sale of a Polish lemonade with the same name. Other celebrities have also clashed with businesses over product puns, including actor Pedro Pascal and a Chilean pisco brand.
