Sam Buck Loses Copyright Suit to Starbucks
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James Joyner | Friday, December 2, 2005 |
Cory Doctorow reports,
A woman named Sam Buck opened a coffee shop in Astoria, Oregon in 2000, two years before a Starbucks opened down the road. She named her shop Sambuck’s, and the judge in her case said that she willfully infringed on Starbucks’s trademark in so doing.
Well, sure. If a guy named Mac Donald opened a hamburger chain and named it after himself, he’d lose, too.
Buck might have a better case had she named the shop “Sam Buck’s Coffee Shop” rather than “Sambucks Coffee.” And the fact that she opened her shop before Starbucks opened one on the same block is irrelevant. Again, had her shop been in existence before Starbucks became a nationally famous chain, she might have a case.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Reminds me of the movie "Coming to America" - McDonald's vs. MacDowells!
Heh, that's the exact comment I was going to leave, Mark.
And me..
Well, since this is what everyone thinks, here is the quote from the movie itself!:
Look... me and the McDonald's people got this little misunderstanding. See, they're McDonald's... I'm McDowell's. They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds.
Mark's quotation brings up a point... what did her shop look like? Were her signs and such similar to Starbucks? I would think that if she were trying to imitate the 'look and feel' of a Starbucks, it would have added fuel to the legal fire.
Does anyone know??
...follow the links, leelu.
Well, the logo seems different enough.
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