Small business takes on Starbucks

[Luddly Neddite]

Missouri Bar Gets Cease-And-Desist Order From Starbucks, Responds With Hilarious Letter And $6 Check - Yahoo Finance

Starbucks is known for aggressively going after small businesses that appear to infringe on its trademark rights.

So it was no surprise that a tiny brewpub in Missouri got a cease-and-desist letter from the coffee chain after it started selling a beer called "Frappicino."

See his letter and the rest of the story at the link.

Love it when the little guy takes on a giant corporation. Lets hope he prevails.

Many years ago, I knew someone in Colorado who started a dog poop picking up service and advertised being the "Tootsie Roll Patrol". The candy company put a stop to that in no time.

 

[Vox]

Love it when the little guy takes on a giant corporation. Lets hope he prevails.

agree 100%.

 

[Abishai100]

Name of the Rose

There was a shoe-maker named Emmit who owned a small shoe store in Brussels, Belgium called Magic Shoes which sold only rubber shoes (no leather).

Emmit lived a simple and happy life, until one day a beautiful stewardess named Fina walked in his store and told him that she would like to use his store as a relay station for friend stewardesses crossing Brussels on stop-over flights.

Emmit agreed, and soon, countless beautiful stewardesses would traffic his store which increased the community popularity of the store and sales and profits for Emmit.

Did Emmit benefit unethically or egregiously from coincidental human traffic?

In cases involving trademark battles between big companies such as Starbucks and small businesses, there could be more dialogue about product-name forgiveness if there is a satisfactory degree of syntactical difference established.

I could argue that a spelling-altered 'Frappicino' item makes customers only think more about the power of Starbucks (which is good for Starbucks).





Starbucks - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia