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Starbucks wants to kill "Charbucks" brand
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rod
over 3 years ago about Starbucks
In the name of a “tarnished image”, Starbucks is asking an appeals court to ban the sale of “Charbucks” by family-owned and operated Black Bear Micro Roastery. The original ruling was in favor of the defendant. Where the judge said that it wasn’t clear that this brand of “very dark roast” coffee in fact had tarnished Starbucks image.
I wonder if Starbucks tried to mediate this outside of court prior to suing this small family-owned establishment in 2001?
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Comments
The mere fact that the Black Bear lawyer John Mark Turner told the court that “Charbucks” is meant to describe a very dark roast, shows that the Black Bear Company is using Starbuck’s suffix to represent a type of roast. I never knew bucks meant roast? Did you?
posted by Niloofar over 3 years ago
C’mon. If the Starbucks lawyers didn’t move on this they wouldn’t be doing their jobs. As Niloofar implies, without the Starbucks trademark, the Charbucks name would make no sense. Black Bear’s only legitimate defense is parody, but that doesn’t wash in a case like this.
There are plenty of other Starbucks stories here whose impact is negative, but I’d score this as a mild positive. I give them credit, they have built a strong and unique mark, imparting new meaning to word-parts unrelated to their product (or Black Bear’s), and they’re protecting it.
posted by Michael over 3 years ago