Starbucks Comes After One-Man Coffee Vendor ‘Star Box’ Over Similar Name

A post shared by Jim Taylor (@jim_s_taylor) on Jan 9, 2017 at 10:15am PST

Starbucks recently issued a cease-and-desist to a coffee kiosk located outside of the London Underground after the coffee giant felt the stand’s name could potentially confuse customers and weaken the brand. The kiosk’s name? Star Box Coffee.

According to GrubStreet, a letter from the Seattle-based coffee company told owner Nasser Kamali to “adopt a different trading name.” One that didn’t begin with the word “Star.”

While the names sound pretty close, especially if you say Star Box ten times fast, Kamali claims that the the name came from the concept of Marxism. Kamali himself is an open socialist.

Even though Kamali says the company offered him £300 in the letter for “goodwill,” he decided not to accept the money on principle. He did, however, remove the “Star” from his branding as he believed he could never win a case against the behemoth coffee company.

Looks like the little guy lost in this case, but Kamali seems to be keeping his head up high and continuing his coffee business. It just goes under a different name now: Box Coffee.