I’ve been seeing this pop up in the news lately and found a good article: ‘Star Bock’ beer has coffee giant Starbucks steamed. Apparently a bar owner in Texas has been selling his Star Bock brand of beer for two years now, and wants to go national, and Starbucks (the coffee people) are suing him for trademark infringement.

Uhm, no.

While I can understand the need to try to enforce trademarks in order to keep them alive—"the company goes to great lengths to differentiate itself from competitors and protect its reputation for consistent high quality," according to the article—there’s nothing here that either competes with Starbucks or tarnishes their reputation as a coffee seller. I don’t see how Starbucks could win this case.

On the other hand, what a great amount of publicity for the guy if he does go national… almost like it was planned that way.