Sam Buck Loses Copyright Suit to Starbucks
·
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.
Related Posts
- None Found
About James Joyner
Reminds me of the movie “Coming to America” – McDonald’s vs. MacDowells!
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
Heh, that’s the exact comment I was going to leave, Mark.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
And me..
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
Well, since this is what everyone thinks, here is the quote from the movie itself!:
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
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??
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0
…follow the links, leelu.
Well, the logo seems different enough.
Helpful or Unhelpful:
0 
0