Starbucks Takes Some Heat Over Trademark Seattle Coffee Retailer Warns Others To Stop Using Chistmas Blend Name

A fuss is brewing among specialty coffee retailers over Christmas - Christmas Blend, to be exact.

That’s the trademark obtained by Starbucks in 1992 for a seasonal blend of Latin American and Indonesian beans that the Seattle-based coffee roaster and retailer has been selling since 1985.

Until recently, it was also a brand of coffee flavored with orange bitters, cinnamon, cloves and allspice at Baltimore Coffee & Tea in Maryland and Williamsburg Coffee & Tea in Virginia.

Todd Arnette, president of the Williamsburg store, and his business partner, Stanley Constantine, president of the Baltimore store, said they were warned Dec. 11 by a Starbucks lawyer to stop using the name.

“I was astounded that anyone would even try to have a name like that trademarked,” Constantine said. “I was surprised the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted it.”

“The audacity of someone trying to trademark Christmas,” Arnette added.

They said the Monastery of the All-Merciful Saviour on Vashon Island also makes a Christmas Blend coffee and quoted the abbot, Hieromonk Tryphon, as saying Starbucks had let it pass, perhaps “because of the adverse publicity attacking a monastery would bring.”

Alan Gulick, a spokesman for Starbucks, said the monastery would get the same warnings as the stores.

“What we’re doing is what all trademark owners do to make sure someone doesn’t take advantage of the values we’ve built over the years,” Gulick said. “If you do not follow up with companies that use your trademark, you will lose your right to that registered trademark.”

The fuss may have been a boon for Constantine and Arnette, who changed the name of their seasonal blend to Christmas Coffee and posted Starbucks’ letter on the World Wide Web and in their stores.

After a Richmond newspaper article on the dispute appeared, Arnette said, sales of the blend went from five pounds on Thursday to 68 pounds Friday. Constantine said his Christmas Coffee sales went from 125 pounds Thursday to 300 to 400 pounds Friday.