Starbucks, the giant coffee shop chain, has been involved with a number of lawsuits. The company has launched numerous trademark infringement suits against other coffee shops using logos that too closely resembled the distinctive Starbucks trademark. In one case a Chinese court sided with the Starbucks coffee house chain in its battle with a Shanghai rival over their use of the same Chinese name. The court ordered the Shanghai Xingbake Cafe Corp. Ltd. to stop using the name Xingbake, the name used in Chinese by Starbucks Corp., the Shanghai Daily and China Daily newspapers said. Xing, pronounced "shing," means star in Chinese, and bake, or "bah kuh," sounds like bucks.
Starbucks sued cartoonist Kieron Dwyer for copyright and trademark infringement of its "mermaid" logo. Dwyer made a parody logo which appeared on the cover of Dwyer's Lowest Common Denominator #0 comic and t-shirts, stickers, and coffee mugs. Dwyer stated that his Consumer Whore-Starbucks parody image was a legitimate parody protected by the First Amendment.
Starbucks had problems entering the Russian market because the Russian rights to the trademarked name was held by squatter Sergei Zujkov and his company Starbucks LLC.
Starbucks has also opposed the government of Ethiopia's efforts to trademark the names of its coffee regions Sidamo, Yirgacheffe and Harar. Starbucks (already using those coffee names) claimed that the names were too generic to trademark. Photo credit: LOC
Take It to YouTube
Sit down with a cup of coffee and view the following YouTube video that discusses the controversy surrounding Starbucks. Oxfam posted the following video on YouTube called "Starbucks Day of Action".
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