Starbucks Slips in the Socialist Shuffle

If you want a latte in Moscow, you’ll have to resort to what we do here in the Middle of Beyond: get your own espresso machine. Meanwhile, Starbucks was less-than-vigilant when it came to guarding its name and got caught with its capitalist knickers down:

The U.S. coffee giant has been eyeing the Russian market since 1997, when it registered the Starbucks trademark with patent agency Rospatent.

Maybe Starbucks’ attention wandered? An entity calling itself OOO Starbucks has taken over the name and now the case is in court.

Rights to the trademark first became an issue in 2002, when a Russian company called Press appealed to Rospatent for the rights to the Starbucks name, as it had not been used for more than three years, and later that year sold the rights to OOO Starbucks, which is unrelated to the U.S. company.

Needless to say, what OOO wants is a whole bunch of money and they’ll go away. A “whole bunch” in this case is $600,000.00 — surely not much more than the average New York City daily take at a local Starbucks’ café?

The U.S. company's position is looking stronger, as it has secured the support of a number of influential figures in Russia, the report says, including Arkady Volsky, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Volsky is also co-chairman of the Russian-American Commercial Energy Dialog.

Maybe it’s the principle of the thing? Whatever. For the moment, things are up in the air:

U.S. Embassy spokesman David Foley declined to say whether the embassy was in talks with Starbucks. He added, "If a Starbucks were to open here, it would be in the embassy cafeteria."

Well, there you are. Another luxury posting for the people from Foggy Bottom.