Starbucks vs. SardarBuksh

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Branding your brand does not and must not mean that you copy somebody else's brand name and get a free ride upon their good will. 

Trademark law is very clear in this aspect while keeping two most essential pre-requisites before registering a trademark as -

1. Trademark has to be distinctive;
2. Trademark must not be descriptive.

Lot many brand owners make mistakes in understanding the concept of distinctiveness and start using brand names which are similar to the already existing trademarks which are famous. Making minor changes here and there either in spellings or color combinations or finding a rhyming words to the existing trademarks does not yield distinctiveness to your brand name. Some of the brand owners knowingly make use of such deceptively similar marks and then get sued. 

In one of such interesting cases in Delhi High Court, the Court has ruled in favor of Starbucks who filed a case against a local coffee shop chain SardarBuksh for copying word mark and logo.

Following are the pictorial depiction of two marks - 



As can be seen from the above pictorial depiction, the trademark used by SardarBuksh Coffee & Co. is deceptively similar to the trademark of Starbucks Coffee.

When sued in August 2018 and after a month long dispute, the local coffee shop owner has agreed to change the word mark as per the directions of the Delhi High Court to Sardarji Bukhsh. It remains to be seen whether Delhi HC also asked to change the logo of the defendant or not as in my opinion, the logo is deceptively similar to that Starbucks.

Building a brand is a task and takes significant efforts and that is why one has to be very cautious at every step particularly if you are going to take the giants head on. 

Will conclude this brief post saying which I always say to my students - Be Passionate, Be Creative and Be Genuine! World is yours!

Cheers!

~until next time~

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