STARBUCKS Fails To See The Humor Of LESSBUCKS

On February 9, 2006, in a Citable Decision, the TTAB upheld an opposition by Starbucks U.S. Brands, LLC and Starbucks Corporation to Marshall S. Rubens' application to register the trademark LESSBUCKS COFFEE for, among other things, "coffee" and "retail store services featuring coffee". The board had little difficulty in determining that STARBUCKS COFFEE is a famous mark and noted that "there is no excuse for even approaching the well-known mark of a competitor in as much as '[a] strong mark...casts a long shadow which competitors must avoid". The applicant had suggested that there would be no likelihood of confusion as its mark would likely be perceived as a parody of the STARBUCKS mark, however, the TTAB saw no refuge in this for the applicant as "joking use of trademarks are deserving of less protection when the object of the joke is the mark of a directly competing product". Perhaps the "topping" on this case was the fact that the Opponent's mall intercept survey found that almost half of the ordinary consumer participants who would have encountered the applicant's mark believed that there was a connection to the Opponent's mark.