The 'Coffee Bean' Trademark lawsuit

coffeebean.com

One of famous coffee brand ‘The Coffee Bean’ by International Coffee & Tea, LLC was applied a trademark ‘The Coffee Bean’ in 1998 and 2000. It started the business since 2001.

Last 2009, Korea Seven, a coffee manufacture company, registered a trademark ‘Coffee bean cantabile’ for their new instant coffee and started to sell. International Coffee & Tea, LLC claimed to invalid the registration because their trademark had similarity and Korea Seven could make unfair profits for that. The patent court rejected the claim because the term ‘coffee bean’ means the material and it can’t be owned by a company as trademark.

engdtj.kipris.or.kr

The Coffee Bean made an appeal against the judge, and this time Supreme Court of Korea reversed the judgement because ‘The Coffee Bean’ and ‘Coffee Bean cantabile’ could make consumers confused. 

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