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A koozie ( ) ( US) or stubby holder (
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n) is a fabric or foam sleeve that is designed to thermally insulate a beverage container, like a
can Can may refer to: Containers * Aluminum can * Drink can * Oil can * Steel and tin cans * Trash can * Petrol can * Metal can (disambiguation) Music * Can (band), West Germany, 1968 ** ''Can'' (album), 1979 * Can (South Korean band) Other * C ...
or
bottle A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal stopp ...
.


Name, origin, and trademark dispute

The name "Koozie", with a capital "K", is a federally
registered trademark The registered trademark symbol, , is a typographic symbol that provides notice that the preceding word or symbol is a trademark or service mark that has been registered with a national trademark office. A trademark is a symbol, word, or word ...
in the United States, originally coined by Bob Autrey of
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, Texas, and rights later sold to Radio Cap Corporation (RCC) as the KOOZIE in the early 1980s. The company RCC specialized in baseball caps before registering a trademark for the name KOOZIE in 1980, and subsequently introducing the product as a can cooler in 1982. As the promotional product industry grew, more products were added to the KOOZIE brand, including drinkware, more styles of can coolers, cooler bags, outdoor leisure items, travel accessories, and business accessories. The word "koozie" has also lost its trademark numerous times over the years, making it a regular everyday word in the English language, similar to words like " Onesie," " Zamboni", and "
Hula Hoop A hula hoop is a toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck. It can also be wheeled along the ground like a wheel, with careful execution. They have been used by children and adults since at least 500 BC. The modern hula hoop ...
." These are brand name products that have been subject to
genericide A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that, because of its popularity or significance, has become the generic term for, or synonymous with, a general class of products or ...
- "the process by which a brand name loses its distinctive identity as a result of being used to refer to any product or service of its kind." Norwood Promotional Products acquired RCC in 1991 and continued to grow the KOOZIE line of products. In 2009, BIC Graphic purchased Norwood and its sub-brands. BIC Graphic dropped the "RCC" in favor of the KOOZIE brand name and expanded the line to include additional styles of can coolers, cooler bags and totes, as well as housewares. Norwood was in a dispute, on-and-off over several years in the 2000s, over the Koozie trademark status with an online retail business called Kustom Koozies. Norwood asserts that names such as ''beer hugger'', ''can cooler'', and ''huggie'' do not infringe its trademark, but that ''koozie'', ''coozie'', ''coolie'', and ''cozy'' do. Kustom Koozies asserted in 2005 that the trademark had become generic. In the years since, Norwood and Kustom Koozies came to a licensing agreement over the use of the trademark, but by 2009 they were in dispute again, as Kustom Koozies tried and failed to cancel the trademark licensing agreement in response to Norwood instructing it to make certain changes to its website, one of which was that "Koozie" should be set out in all-capital letters as "KOOZIE," and another being that the
registered trademark symbol The registered trademark symbol, , is a typographic symbol that provides notice that the preceding word or symbol is a trademark or service mark that has been registered with a national trademark office. A trademark is a symbol, word, or word ...
"®" be used to identify genuine Norwood KOOZIE brand beverage sleeves. In Australia, the beverage insulator is called a stubby holder because local beer was traditionally sold in bottles colloquially known as "stubbies" due to their short, squat appearance in comparison to the alternative packaging of bottles ("king brown", "tallie", or simply "bottle"), and the longneck bottles commonly used for beer imported from North America and Europe. Most Australian domestic beers have now adopted longneck bottles and/or aluminium cans ("tinnies") for their packaging, and bottles are now sold much less commonly than was the case historically. Victoria Bitter (VB) is notable for continuing to use the traditional stubby, albeit with a twist top replacing the traditional crown seal.


Use

Koozies are used to insulate a chilled beverage from warming by warm air, sunlight, and body heat. Using a koozie can reduce the rate a drink warms in the sun by up to 50%. These items can also be used for easily identifying one's beverage from another person's and for marketing or minimizing the condensation on the can. By imprinting on the koozie many different companies have used the koozie as a promotional giveaway because it is not only inexpensive to manufacture, but its frequent use is more likely to bring the company's name to a household presence. Originally a logo or image was screen-printed on a round foam cylinder with a foam base, which generally has a hole at the base to ease inserting and removing beverage containers.


Materials and styles

The koozie has evolved in both material and style. Materials used include
leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...
,
neoprene Neoprene (also polychloroprene) is a family of synthetic rubbers that are produced by polymerization of chloroprene.Werner Obrecht, Jean-Pierre Lambert, Michael Happ, Christiane Oppenheimer-Stix, John Dunn and Ralf Krüger "Rubber, 4. Emulsion R ...
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EVA Eva or EVA may refer to: * Eva (name), a feminine given name Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Eva (Dynamite Entertainment), a comic book character by Dynamite Entertainment * Eva (''Devil May Cry''), Dante's mother in t ...
,
polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...
,
vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...
, and various open-cell and closed-cell foams. There are koozies for 40 oz. bottles, and adjustable koozies that fit different beverage container sizes.


See also

*
Cup holder A cup holder is a device, such as a zarf, to hold a cup or other drinking vessel. It may be free standing to hold cups securely on a desk or other flat surface, or in a tree style to store sets of cups in kitchens. They may be built into automob ...
*
Cooler A cooler, portable ice chest, ice box, cool box, chilly bin (in New Zealand), or esky ( Australia) is an insulated box used to keep food or drink cool. Ice cubes are most commonly placed in it to help the contents inside stay cool. Ice packs a ...
*
Tea cosy A tea cosy or tea warmer is a cover for a teapot,Article of the'' Boston Journal'', 25 November 1879 traditionally made of cloth. It insulates a teapot, keeping the contents warm. Their use predates the invention of vacuum flasks as a means of ...
*
Thermal insulation Thermal insulation is the reduction of heat transfer (i.e., the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature) between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence. Thermal insulation can be achieved with s ...
*
Vacuum flask A vacuum flask (also known as a Dewar flask, Dewar bottle or thermos) is an insulating storage vessel that greatly lengthens the time over which its contents remain hotter or cooler than the flask's surroundings. Invented by Sir James Dewa ...


References


Citations


General sources

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External links

* {{commons category-inline, Koozies Australian inventions Beer advertising Beer vessels and serving Drinkware Holders