Samantha Buck Lundberg has a small coffee shop in Astoria, Oregon. Nothing unusual about that.

What’s somewhat unusual about Samantha’s shop is its name: “Sambuck’s.” It was derived by splicing the first part of her given name, “Sam,” with her maiden name, “Buck.”

Harmless enough, you think? Not to the legal watchdogs of the coffee megalocorporation, Starbucks.

Last month, Starbucks sued Samantha, charging that the name of her shop violated Starbucks’ trademark. At this writing, she’s vowing to fight the Seattle-based coffee titan.

I don’t know a whole lot about trademark law, but it seems to me this case opens a couple of cans of very wriggly worms.

For one thing, which part of the name “Sambuck’s” is the problem? Is it “Sam” or is it “Buck”? Or is it the two parts together?

And where do you draw the line? What if a guy named Sam Buck opens a coffee shop and calls it “Sam Buck’s Espresso”?

What if a guy named Walt opens a discount retail store and calls it “Walt’s Mart”? Will Wal-Mart sic its legal bloodhounds on him?

Or how about “Kay’s Mart”?

Starbucks offered Samantha money to settle the suit; she countered with a demand for $60,000, which Starbucks turned down.

“We still hope that this can be resolved amicably, and only hope that their attorney is not encouraging them to look for a windfall,” Starbucks officially huffed.

Well, $60,000 doesn’t seem like that much of a windfall. But the legal tussle already has brought Samantha a windfall, in terms of publicity.

Business at her shop is booming as never before. People not only are flocking in to buy coffee and biscotti, they’re also chipping in to help Samantha in her court fight. In August, her supporters picketed the Starbucks in Portland’s Pioneer Square.

As I said earlier, I don’t know much about trademark law. But I do know a little bit about public relations, and I have some free advice for Starbucks:

Pay the $60,000.

Public relations-wise, this couldn’t come at a worse time for you guys.

You try hard to project a warm and fuzzy image; your Web site proudly declares: “Contributing positively to our communities and environment is so important to Starbucks it is listed as a guiding principle of the company’s mission.”

But let’s face it, guys: It’s not working.

Your company, which started out more than 30 years ago as a little coffee shop in Seattle, has grown into a detested icon of multinational capitalism and its evils.

Something called the Organic Consumers Association (see http://www.organicconsumers.org/starbucks/index.htm) has targeted you for a leafleting campaign, accusing you of feeding genetically modified products to your customers and buying coffee produced by exploited workers.

There’s even a Web site called “I Hate Starbucks” (http://www.ihatestarbucks.com) and another one called, simply, “Starbucked” (http://www.starbucked.com), filled with complaints about poor service, rude managers and so on.

And now, here you are, living up to your Big Bad Corporate Bully image by beating up on one poor struggling small-business owner in Astoria.

Gentlemen, this is public relations stupidity of astronomical proportions. Your company has more than 4,700 shops all over the world. The danger that Sambuck’s of Astoria will cut into your market share seems remote, to put it mildly.

And $60,000 is probably less than you spend on wooden coffee stirrers in a week.

On the other hand, your vendetta against Samantha Buck Lundberg is costing you the equivalent of millions in public relations damage.

So cut your losses. Pay the $60,000 and fuhgeddaboudit. Even if by now you have to kick in another $20K or so, it’s worth it.

Anyway, the whole issue seems kind of silly because the founders of Starbucks stole the name in the first place: “Starbuck” is the first mate on the Pequod in Moby Dick.

Maybe Herman Melville’s descendants should be suing YOU for copyright infringement.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 1st, 2002 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Bruce on the Loose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.