South Korea Bucks the Trend -- No Coffee for you !

Just read an interesting South Korean article about Starbucks in the Korean Times newspaper, which tells us how Starbucks has lost a trade mark infringement suit in South Korea. The South Korean Supreme court upheld a lower court's decision that Elpreya’s STARPREYA round trade mark, consisting of the head of a classical lady, bounded by a green border containing white writing & two stars and the words ‘Starpreya Coffee’, would not cause confusion with the Starbucks trade mark because the trade marks are not considered similar. The court ruled that the words looked different and "Star" is commonly used in trademarks and so it wasn't very distinctive. Moreover, Starbucks' trade mark was found not to be a famous mark. Both companies have been trading in South Korea since 1999.

I honestly didn't find the Court's argument particularly convincing and think it sounds like they are protecting the local Korean company. I agree that if you analyze each element of the two logos bit by bit it’s possible to highlight many differences between them, but a consumer in a hurry will just take a quick glance and will be confronted with two logos of green rims containing white writing and a picture in the middle. This serves as a good lesson for multinationals to study intellectual property protection laws carefully in each country they operate in!
Ritu Dhillon

Link: http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200701/kt2007011219292011980.htm