George Howell, proprietor of the Boston-based Coffee Connection, created the first Frappuccino in 1992
Starbucks, founded in Seattle, has frequently fought over its trademarks over the years. Its most recent victorious struggle was against an Indian coffee establishment.
Starbucks, which has 268 shops in 26 Indian cities, filed a petition in December 2018 alleging that LOL Cafe in Jaipur was selling a beverage named "Brownie Chips Frappuccino" without its consent, authorization, or license.
It accused the café of impersonating Starbucks' products and failing to react to several notifications in connection with this in 2019.
The Delhi High Court indefinitely barred LOL Cafe from distributing its Frappuccino on November 17.
"The defendants' use of the mark 'Frappuccino' is dishonest and intended to deceive an unsuspecting consumer." "It amounts to trademark infringement and would also result in passing off the defendants' goods as those of the plaintiff (Starbucks)," the top court (pdf) stated.
"The defendants were also making reference to the beverage name 'Frappuccino' on their establishment's electric menu cards, which were also uploaded on third-party listing portals such as 'Zomato' and 'EazyDiner' for promotion and advertisement," according to the decision.
The coffee shop was also hit with a legal bill of more than 13 lakh rupees ($15,945).
Starbucks' preference for the legal path
This is not the first time Starbucks has been sued for trademark infringement.
In 2020, Japan's intellectual property high court denied an application to annul the bubble tea chain Bull Pulu Tapioca's trademark registration. Starbucks lost a battle in 2013 against Wolfe's Borough Coffee, a US-based coffee vendor that offered the "Charbucks" brand of drinks.
In 2018, the New Delhi-based SardarBuksh coffee business was sued over its name and logo. While the company's name was changed to "Sardarji-Bakhsh," the emblem remained.
The same year, Starbucks won a case against a European trademark application with a circular, black-and-white design with the words "coffee rocks."
Starbucks did not invent the Frappuccino
George Howell, the proprietor of Boston's Coffee Connection cafe, ordered his marketing manager Andrew Frank to create a new recipe in 1992.
Frank created a one-of-a-kind combination of coffee, sugar, milk, and ice and utilized a frozen yoghurt maker to get a smooth, creamy texture. Frappuccino is a pun on the New England milkshake, the frappe.
Frappuccino transformed Boston's coffee consumption patterns, doubling Howell's business to 23 cafés in a year. Starbucks paid $23 million buying the Coffee Connection franchise and the Frappuccino trademark two years later, in 1994.
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