I work in intellectual property so these Weber lawsuits always interest me. Weber is definitely no stranger to IP litigation (e.g. Happy Cooker). Apparently there was a 1973 suit between Weber and CharBroil in which Weber sued for patent, trade mark and trade dress infringement for CharBroil's Webster grill. The companies reached a settlement where CharBroil was allowed to sell off inventory provided it didn't use the Webster name.
In this case, Weber sued for trademark infringement based on three trademarks:
1,478,530 (three-dimensional pictorial representation of kettle portion for “barbeque grills”)
1,479,505 (two-dimensional silhouette for “barbeque grills”)
1,481,521 (three-dimensional pictorial representation of three-legged kettle grill design for “barbeque grills”)
If you want to see exactly what the trademarks are you can look them up here (
https://www.uspto.gov/trademark) using the TSS link.
More recently, Char-Broil has filed a counter-suit in this case alleging breach of contract and antitrust violations stemming from Weber's misuse of trademark law.
For some prospective, the USPTO defines trademark infringement as:
"Trademark infringement is the unauthorized use of a trademark or service mark on or in connection with goods and/or services in a manner that is likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake about the source of the goods and/or services."
Additionally, for infringement "the parties' goods and/or services are sufficiently related that consumers are likely to assume (mistakenly) that they come from a common source" (
https://www.uspto.gov/page/about-trademark-infringement)
I could go on and on, but this one will be interesting to follow.