Bend’s Atlas Cider changing name to avoid legal woes

A popular Bend-based cider-maker is about to change its name, but not because it really wanted to.

Instead, Atlas Cider co-founder Dan McCoy announced on Facebook Tuesday the impending name change, from Atlas Cider to Avid Cider, because of a trademark dispute with a small brewery on the East Coast.

Just last year, McCoy said, they were contacted by the owner of Atlas Brew Works in Washington, D.C., and learned they had trademarked the name just three weeks before Atlas Cider did.

And so, at the Bend cidery’s five-year anniversary carnival on June 1, the new name will be rolled out.

“After a lengthy negotiation and soul-searching, we decided that we wanted to move forward as a company without any possible future issues surrounding our name,” McCoy wrote. “Most importantly, our iconic logo of Atlas holding the world remains intact.”