Pedro Pascal appears backstage after winning the award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series award for ‘”he Last of Us” during the SAG Awards in Los Angeles in February 2024. He has filed a lawsuit against the Chilean pisco brandy brand Pedro Piscal, claiming violations of intellectual property and image rights because the name is too similar to his own. File Photo by Chris Chew/UPI | License Photo
Actor Pedro Pascal has filed a lawsuit against the Chilean pisco brandy brand Pedro Piscal, claiming violations of intellectual property and image rights because the name is too similar to his own.
Chilean entrepreneur David Herrera officially registered the trademark in 2023 with the country’s Intellectual Property Institute for a new, 40-proof premium pisco produced in the Elqui Valley, which he named Pedro Piscal. He began selling it in 2024 for just over $13 a bottle.
Months later, attorneys for Pascal — star of The Last of Us and The Mandalorian — sued Herrera, arguing the brand name could mislead consumers into believing Pascal was behind its creation.
Herrera has defended himself, saying that neither the name, label nor website refers to the actor.
“Pedro comes from Pedro Jiménez, the white grape variety used to make the pisco, and Piscal is directly related to pisco. It’s a play on words but in no way a reference to the actor,” Herrera said.
“It is clear that it causes confusion and therefore must be canceled,” said attorney Juan Pablo Silva of the Silva law firm, which represents Pascal.
Another issue with the name is that Pascal already serves as the face of other alcoholic beverage brands, including Corona beer and Casillero del Diablo wine from Chilean winery Concha y Toro.
“Pascal has already lent his image to these campaigns, so it is no small matter for a bottle of pisco to try to enter that same market without doing things the way they should be done,” said publicist Sebastián Goldsack, a communication professor at the University of the Andes in Chile.
He added that celebrities protect their names because they know they function as trademarks.
“The risk is not only commercial confusion, but also reputational loss,” Goldsack said. “His name represents trust, symbolic value and cultural capital. If people buy believing there is a connection with Pedro Pascal, and there is not, that intangible asset is undermined.”
The legal dispute between Pedro Pascal and the pisco brand Pedro Piscal illustrates how a personal name can become an economic and cultural asset of enormous value, he said.
“This is not just a play on words with the Pedro Jiménez grape, as the pisco’s creator argues, but the inevitable association with an actor who is now a global symbol of pop culture,” Goldsack said.
“In intellectual property law, it is always said that when a name is already loaded with public meaning, any close use can be interpreted as improper exploitation.”
For now, the case is in the “evidence stage,” in which both sides present the materials needed to support their claims. At the same time, Pascal’s legal team won a ruling in his favor from NIC Chile, the domain administrator, which granted him the addresses pedro-piscal.cl and pedropiscalpisco.cl on the grounds that use by the alcohol maker violated business ethics.
Herrera now uses the domain piscal.cl to continue marketing Pedro Piscal.
Pedro Pascal’s career: hit series, films, red carpets
Pedro Pascal arrives on the red carpet at the premiere of “Game of Thrones” Season 4 in New York City on March 18, 2014. Pascal portrayed Oberyn Martell on the series. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
