Small Coffee Business Vows To Fight Back Against Nestle's Alleged Ownership Of The Word “Seattle” – CoffeeTalk

Nestle, the world’s largest food and beverage conglomerate, is attempting to force Seattle Strong, a canned cold brew company founded by Evan Oeflein, to change its name. Seattle Strong has been around since 2017 and was granted a trademark on its name in 2023. The company sells its coffee at local grocery chains and a few stores outside the state, but it is still a tiny business compared to Nestle, which owns over 2,000 brands. One of those brands is Seattle’s Best Coffee, which Nestle purchased from Starbucks in 2022.

Oeflein, the founder of Seattle Strong, insists that he doesn’t want to give up the name Seattle Strong has been using for years and that if Nestle thought that “Seattle Strong” constituted infringement, it could have filed a complaint in 2023. However, Oeflein refuses to change the name, leading Nestle to escalate its dispute by filing a petition for cancellation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April Fools’ Day.

Oeflein argues that generic phrases or place names can’t be trademarked, and Seattle Strong only got its trademark after several years of using the name and obtaining “acquired distinctiveness.” Since the only overlap between the two brands is the word Seattle and the fact that they sell coffee in grocery stores, Oeflein says this action is tantamount to a declaration that “they own the word Seattle for coffee.”

Seattle Strong hired a lawyer to respond to the initial petition, and Nestle’s lawyer responded with a motion to immediately dismiss all of Seattle Strong’s arguments. Oeflein believes that Nestle will be very aggressive and force Seattle Strong to pay a lot of legal fees to defend its name.

Read More @ Eater