San Antonio-based H-E-B pulls cocktail mixers from shelves, citing trademark infringement

New York-based Swoon Brands LLC is in hot water with grocery giant H-E-B, which has pulled the cocktail mix maker’s no-sugar products from store shelves, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

Apparently, there’s only room for one Swoon product in H-E-B groceries — and that's the grocery store’s private-label ice cream brand.

According to the daily, Swoon Brands LLC was known as Be Mixed, until a March 1 name change. Now, H-E-B is suing the company for trademark infringement in San Antonio federal court, seeking unspecified monetary damages.

H-E-B also wants the court to order the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Swoon Brands’ trademark registration and to reject three pending applications.

“At H-E-B, we invest heavily in the development of our brands to provide our customers the best quality products,” spokeswoman Dya Campos told the Express-News in an email. “As a result, we cannot sit on the sidelines while others use without permission the intellectual property H-E-B and its partners have worked so hard to develop.”

Prior to the name change, the two sides spent several months trying to negotiate a compromise, the Express-News reports.

H-E-B’s lawsuit argues that Swoon Brands’ use of Swoon is “likely to confuse consumers.” That's troublesome, the grocery chain says, because “unlike Swoon Brands’ infringing Swoon products, H-E-B’s Swoon products are not zero-calorie or sugar-substitute products."

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