On December 18, The Seattle Times reported that Starbucks Corp. plans to appeal a South Korean court’s refusal to cancel the registration of Seoul coffee company Elpreya’s STARPREYA trademark registration based on the alleged infringement of STARBUCKS. 
Says Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz: “We’re going to refute that; there will be no letup.”
“We have no patents or technology. What we have is the reputation of the company and obviously the trademark.”
Press reports describing the Patent Court of Korea’s September 20 decision are available from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Korea Times.