The Starbucks logo also features a woman in a circular image, in this case wearing a crown or hat also adorned with a five-pointed star. It wouldn’t be so galling, but the new owners of the former Starbucks coffee chain didn’t even try hard to conceal the obvious trademark infringement.
Since they were banned from using the Starbucks logo, Timati told reporters they had tried to find some “continuity,” particularly involving the circular shape, the “female gender,” and of course, the trademark star. One supposes they could argue in a Russian court that the star is a Russian symbol, but cafe partner Pinskiy is also trying to convince all and sundry that the logo is completely different from the Starbucks mark.
“Under the Putin regime … Russia takes what Russia wants.”
Starbucks had 130 stores in Russia, operated by its licensee Alshaya Group, with nearly 2,000 employees in the country. Pinskiy said his company acquired those shops through a tendering process, and they will gradually reopen throughout August and September.
Starbucks’s licensee Alshaya, which operates out of Kuwait, had also indicated it had no interest in operating the cafes in Russia without the Starbucks brand, which resulted in the buyout by Pinskiy’s group.
That’s a trend that has happened throughout Russia in multiple sectors, as dozens of major Western brands exited the country. The most famous was the exit of McDonald’s, which wanted to keep its employees in a job, and ended up turning their restaurants over to a local competitor. The first McDonald’s Restaurant ever opened in Russia reopened in Moscow in June under the new name “Vkusno-i tochka,” which translates as “Tasty and that’s it.”
It probably sounds snappier in Russian.
To give the Vkusno-i tochka operators credit, the new logo looks nothing like the American burger chain’s famed Golden Arches, but that’s not to say the Russians didn’t try it on. When it was first announced that Russian groups would try to replace McDonalds, one group came up with a logo that was essentially the Golden Arches turned sideways, which stood for the name “Uncle Vanya’s”.
Many observers outside Russia may think the trademark infringement is largely harmless, given the sorry state of the country’s economy, and the far worse impact of the War in Ukraine itself. However, there are bigger issues at stake that will almost certainly plague Western brands who have pulled up stakes in Russia.
After being hit with sanctions by the EU and NATO countries, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development’s has hinted it may do away with civil liability for trademark infringement, at the same time there has been a marked increase in trademark applications targeted at non-Russian brands.
Legal experts say several Western brands, including Christian Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Levi’s, BMW and Audi have been subject to an enormous number of bad-faith trademark filings, and it is unclear how the Russian patent and trademark office, known as Rospatent, will handle them.
If Rospatent allows those filings to go ahead and grants trademark protection, it could become almost impossible for brands to return to the Russian marketplace. In a battle between a Western Gucci and a Russian Gucci, which Gucci will win out before the Russian courts?
With trademarks granted by Rospatent and the sympathetic ear of Russian courts and government, it’s now hard to imagine that some may plan to hold famous marks and brands hostage, with the intent of extorting licensing agreements from Western brands if, or when, Russia rejoins the world economy.
And then there’s the problem of counterfeits and cheap, illegal knockoffs. Just as Stars Coffee is selling a product almost identical to Starbucks, so too are counterfeiters in Russia taking advantage of the situation to sell knockoffs of luxury goods. According to a report from World Trademark Review, the market for counterfeits in Russia is already estimated to amount to $50 billion in sales per year, and it is likely that this number will go up as the number of counterfeits increases in the absence of control or enforcement.
That will become a much greater concern for Western brands if we see Russian companies mirror what has happened over the years in China, as a mix of grey market and counterfeit goods are exported into the European Union through unauthorized channels.
Given these threats to global IP protection from a major state actor, the somewhat goofy adaptation of the Starbucks trademark looks a lot less amusing.