Are you a fan of Starbucks?

Or…

Are you a fan of local craft coffee companies (also referred as 3rd wave coffee)

Starbucks is a corporate behemoth. Green Mountain Coffee (owner of the Keurig) is a corporate behemoth. Dunkin Donuts is a corporate behemoth.

Would you consider Stumptown a corporate behemoth? Most of you would not. Most of you would think they are a trendy 3rd wave craft coffee company.

But with this (sorta old) news of Stumptown sending Cease and Desist letters you to smaller cold brew coffee vendors launches them into Corporate Thug territory. Stumptown has jumped the shark and become Starbucks.

Stumptown Sending Stubby Cease and Desist

The trademark consists of three-dimensional packaging for coffee and coffee-based beverages in the form of a semi-transparent brown bottle.

Basically Stumptown is saying they own the trademark to coffee in a short round amber glass bottle? Get The Fuck Outta here.

If you really read the above trade mark does that mean the Stumptown owns the trademark to ANY shape amber glass bottle with coffee in it?

If the trademark instead said something like the shape of the bottle along with the font and specific color of the ink I would think it be a bit more justifiable. But just a semi-transparent brown bottle?

I’m not all against a company protecting their brand. But their brand is not a generic brown bottle in my opinion. It’s the specific decoration of their bottles and brands. That would be like 1 craft beer brewer trademarking a generic amber glass bottle so other craft brewers couldn’t use generic bottles.

Would this flask like amber glass bottle also be in violation (Revolver is in Canada)

I think Stumptown is only going after the stubbie looking bottles. But who knows if they want to go after every brown bottle using cold brew coffee maker later on.

“It’s all about protecting our brand equity,” Diane Aylsworth, Stumptown’s director of cold brew said. “It’s not about attacking the little guy.”