k wrote:
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.
Hm. Normally, this is the kind of thing where I'd be 100% for the independent owner, and I still hate starbucks, but they're not too far off the mark here. She clearly intended her logo to be a jibe at starbucks. If it was only the name, then this would be bullshit, but she poked the bees nest. That being said, I certainly don't think it's *confusing* and if that is the metric (ostensibly) then I still think the ruling is wrong.
Anyway, it kind of sucks for her, but she didn't do herself any favors, for sure.
The logo's really don't look much alike at all...
They both have circles... and both are pretty different. Sambuck's has some green...
The only thing that might be slightly too close is the missing space between sam and buck's. And the presence of stars. There's some pink blue thing which could either be a coffee cup or a hot tub. There's no spread eagle mermaid. The font is very different. Starbucks is not possessive like Sambuck's.
Plus the name "starbucks" is taken from Moby-Dick, which should be in the public domain anyway.
