Seattle Trademark Lawyer

Seattle bar queen Linda Derschang called off her meeting with Starbucks over the features she believed the coffee company copied from her neighboring bar, “Smith.” (Previous STL post here.)

“I feel already over it,” Ms. Derschang told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “It’s just not that big of a deal.”

Just a few days ago, Ms. Derschang ripped Starbucks in the press, accusing the company of turning its soon-to-open unbranded 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea store into a Smith lookalike.

She railed in The Slog: “Have you seen the color of the new Starbucks on 15th? Noticed the salvaged wood wall outside which is the same as my salvaged wood planter box in front of Smith? Poke your head in and check out the salvaged wood frames on the walls, the vintage industrial light fixtures, and the old wooden seats. … I can’t believe that anyone, whether a hair salon or a coffee chain, would just go ahead and knock off their next door neighbor’s exterior….”

Ms. Derschang reportedly had lined up a meeting with Starbucks to talk about her concerns before having her abrupt change of heart. 

She now says the differences in the parties’ services distinguish her case from the Peso’s-Matador lawsuit that settled last year. Even though Starbucks’ new store will sell beer and wine, they’re not a restaurant and bar, she said.

“They are selling coffee, and we’re a restaurant and bar. So many people sell beer and wine on our street I don’t think that’s really a huge deal. It’s more about them trying out this new concept.”

Washington appellate courts are starting to put briefs on the Web, Mary Whisner reports on her blog, Trial Ad (and other) Notes. So far, folks can access Washington Supreme Court briefs from June 2006 to the present, Division I (Seattle) briefs from June 2009 to the present, and Division II (Tacoma) briefs from June 2006 to the present. As the databases grow, this will be a boon to those who practice here. A trip to PACER is always one of my first steps in writing a brief in federal court. Find a hot case on Westlaw, get the date and cause number, and then retrieve the parties’ briefs. Looking forward to repeating this recipe for efficient researching and brief-writing when practicing in state court.

The owner of Capitol Hill’s Smith (left) claims Starbucks’ forthcoming
shop next door unfairly mimics her bar’s look-and-feel.
Photo credit: Joshua Trujillo / Seattle PI

Capitol Hill bar maven Linda Derschang claims a neighboring Starbucks store that’s undergoing renovation has copied the look and feel of her Smith restaurant and bar.

She told the now solely-online Seattle Post-Intelligencer (article here) that the 15th Avenue Starbucks — soon to be rebranded as “15th Avenue Coffee and Tea” — mimics her hunting-lodge-esque hipster haven.

“It’s got a lot of salvaged wood, it’s the same paint color inside as Smith and some of the wood framed chalkboards look very, very similar,” she said. “If they had decided to do that look in a different neighborhood or city that would be one thing, but trying to position themselves as an independent coffee house? Where’s the independent spirit in knocking someone off?”

Starbucks representative Anna Kim-Williams told the PI the coffee company is trying to fit in better with the neighborhood. “We’re continuing our commitment to delivering specialty coffee excellence while refreshing our store design approach with an amplified focus on local relevance,” she said.

After the remodel, Starbucks will sell beer and wine as well as coffee.

The PI says Ms. Derschang is meeting with Starbucks to discuss her concerns on Monday.

This dispute may remind STL readers of the trade dress lawsuit between Seattle’s Peso’s and Matador Tex-Mex restaurants and bars that settled last year (STL’s initial post on that dispute here).

Additional coverage at The Slog.

Come July 26, Washington’s Consumer Protection/Unfair Business Practices Act will be amended to increase the discretionary trebling of damages to $25,000 from $10,000. This should be of interest to local practitioners, as Section 43(a)-type causes of action (like infringement of an unregistered trademark, false designation of origin, and false advertising) at the state level often get shoe-horned into the CPA.

A new section also broadens the Act’s reach by clarifying that “a claimant may establish that the act or practice is injurious to the public interest” — a requirement that has slayed many CPA claims — if it “(a) [i]njured other persons; (b) had the capacity to injure other persons; or (c) has the capacity to injure other persons.” This significantly lessens the plaintiff’s proof needed to sustain a CPA claim.

Per Substitute Senate Bill 5531, these amendments apply “to all causes of action that accrue on or after the effective date” of the amendments, or July 26.

UW School of Law Professor Sean O’Connor, guest blogging at Legal Satyricon, writes about AT&T’s trademark registration of the bars indicating cell phone signal strength (depicted left).

“The bars are purely functional representations of the strength of cell service and a standardized one at that,” he writes. “If anything were unworthy of being captured as a trademark, this should have been it.

To his dismay, AT&T’s bold use of “SM” to indicate its claim to common law rights in the design last year was replaced with an even bolder ”®” to indicate its federal registration, albeit on the Supplemental Register.

“While I am aghast at the chutzpah of the attorneys who sought to register a blatantly functional, generic icon as a proprietary trademark, I reserve my highest scorn for the PTO.”

A spirited discussion follows the post. Nice debut, Sean!