Starbucks wins some, loses some

A Chinese court has decided that coffee chain Xingbake must change its name because it’s too similar to “Starbucks.” Apparently, Xing means “star,” and bake sounds a bit too much like “bucks.” But in New Hampshire, a judge has ruled that a small company that sells a dark coffee blend called Charbucks has not harmed the coffee giant. The judge wrote that the packaging “is different in imagery, color and format from Starbucks’ logo and signage” and that there was no evidence that the company “advertises by radio or uses Charbucks as a stand-alone word in promoting or offering its product.”