The owners of a Seattle-based cold brew brand called Seattle Strong are fighting back in a trademark dispute with Swiss multinational food giant Nestlé, owner of the Seattle’s Best Coffee brand.
Nestlé, which acquired Seattle’s Best Coffee from Starbucks in 2022 for an undisclosed amount, filed a petition with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in April asking for Seattle Strong’s trademark to be canceled.
Seattle Strong, a ready-to-drink cold brew maker that grew out of a University of Washington business school project in 2017, announced last week that it was fighting the petition, while launching a Gofundme campaign for legal costs.
“When a monolithic corporation like Nestlé tries to take away our right to call ourselves ‘Seattle Strong,’ we have no choice but to stand up,” Seattle Strong Founder Evan Oeflein said in a press release. “The only overlap between Seattle’s Best and Seattle Strong is the word Seattle. We built this company from the ground up in the city we love, and we won’t back down.”
In its petition, Nestlé said that the trademarks of the two brands are similar, while the goods covered under the marks are “identical,” which means “consumers will likely be confused, mistaken, or deceived as to the source of the parties’ respective goods.”
The Seattle’s Best Coffee brand can be traced back to a single coffee shop on Whidbey Island, northwest of Seattle under the name Wet Whisker, founded by Jim Stewart. The Stewart family later rebranded under the Seattle’s Best moniker following a tasting competition that took place in either 1989 or 1990, according to local news records.
The Seattle’s Best brand was acquired by a group of Italian investors in the mid 1990s and later sold to franchise expert AFC Enterprises. Starbucks acquired the coffee company in 2003.
The petition from Nestlé comes less than a month after Seattle Strong unveiled a new logo and branding on its canned products. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office set a discovery and trial schedule for the case last week.
“This fight isn’t just ours, it’s for every small business that’s ever been told to get out of the way. It’s about who gets to claim ownership of the name of our city,” Oeflein said in the press release. “We don’t believe any company, especially one based over 5,000 miles away in Switzerland, should be able to tell Seattleites they can’t use the name ‘Seattle.’ We may be small, but we’re backed by a community that believes in standing strong.”
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Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
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