Baloo22

"However on Threads like this dozens of know-it-all TEFLERS and other hand-to-mouth denizens of Thailand suddenly spring out of the bushes and explain / complain that Starbucks is selling a rubbish Product and of course - by implication - THEY could do better.

(Pun intended!)"

Sorry, what pun? I missed it.

The little emoticon guy is drinking coffee. Undoubtedly, Starbucks coffee!

Yup! Suicide Vans!!

Can you elaborate on; "pack it in front of them to bypass customs." Whose customs??

Dominican Republic (41.7 per 100,000 people) is the top dog in terms of road deaths and to quote an article in the Washington Post on the WHO report. "The next 10 most dangerous countries for driving, in descending order, are: Thailand, Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria, South Africa, Iraq, Guinea-Bissau, Oman and Chad."

Woo hoo, go Thailand! I am sure if they keep things up they can be number one very soon.

I liked the part that said "In the United Arab Emirates city of Abu Dhabi, a three-day Blackberry phone outage coincided with a 40 percent drop in traffic accidents. " One positive aspect of cell-phone outages!

"A map of the countries with the most dangerous roads"

Max Fisher, Washington Post, June 7,2013

One commenter wrote out a bunch of "Rules for driving in the DR". They are quite good. Seems they would fit here too!

1.Turn signals only give away your next move. Never use them.

2. Under no circumstances leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you. (Somebody else will fill in the space, putting you in an even more dangerous situation.)

3. The faster you drive through a red light, the smaller the chance you have of getting hit.

4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign. (No one expects it and you will be rear-ended.)

5. Remember driving is like playing chicken, intimidate others by driving as big of a car as you can find. If you can't afford a giant car, get a really beat up one. You can scare others with it too because everyone knows you don't care that it will show any additional body damage when you collide. (But remember, these rules don't apply with buses and semi-trucks.)

6. Braking is only to be done as hard and late as possible.

7. Never wait for an opening when you want to pass a car. You can always run the cars in your lane off the road to get back in before crashing head-on into oncoming traffic. The cars in the oncoming lane are expendable also.

There's more at the link above.

The truth is Starbucks for sure is right in this dispute, but public (especially Muslim public) sympathy, inspired by leftist anti-corporate discourse, is for sure on Starbung's side.

1) Nobody like copyright protectors

2)Nobody like corporations nowadays, even if they protect there property

3) Nobody like American corporations even more

Very vulnerable position and bad publicity. A person in Starbucks who started this should be fired immediately..

You forgot number four in your list. Here you go!

4) This dispute is occurring in the land of Fake-Copy-Steal.

The taste cant be worse than starbucks shit awful stuff

So many similar silly Posts on this Thread.

Starbucks is a Multi-BILLION Dollar Company, serving hundreds of thousands of Coffees a DAY, worldwide - they are obviously doing a LOT right.

However on Threads like this dozens of know-it-all TEFLERS and other hand-to-mouth denizens of Thailand suddenly spring out of the bushes and explain / complain that Starbucks is selling a rubbish Product and of course - by implication - THEY could do better.

(Pun intended!)

Patrick

"dozens of know-it-all TEFLERS and other hand-to-mouth denizens of Thailand suddenly spring out of the bushes"

Love it!!

Just another day in road travel in Thailand. Many other countries have lots of buses, trucks, and cars on their roads. Many other countries have some roads in poor conditions. IMO, the number one cause of the horrible driving behavior here is the lack of what most of us would consider normal everyday traffic law/traffic safety enforcement. This is what happens when you have a police force that is more interested in personal profit than public safety and enforcement of laws.

IMO, if a person has to travel any long distance in Thailand the safest ways are, in order from most safe to least:

1. Airplane. Yes, we read about air crashes, but compared with the number of flights and passengers, crashes are rare. Even on the small airlines.

2. Train. Yes, we have read about a number of derailments here in Thailand. But again, with the number of people traveling by train, your chances of experiencing a derailment are slim. Also,the trains here travel relatively slowly and when derailments happen, they usually do not result in fatalities. True, train systems in places like Europe are more modern and better maintained but when the derailments/crashes do occur, they often are at much higher speeds. ( Note; I'm not slamming Europe. I've traveled trains in Germany. Very well done!! )

3. Bus. But choose your bus company carefully!! There are two bus companies that I know of that provide reasonably good service and reasonably safe operation. In the north of Thailand you have Green Bus. I've traveled on them. IMO, good service and sane driving. Another company with good reputation is NakhonChaiAIr bus company. Anybody experience any other good bus companies??

4. Personal Driving a car. How safe a driver are you? You are still on the roads here with all the other cars.

879. Vans and "mini-buses". My personal favorite name for them is "Suicide Vans". Reckless drivers at high speed. Often forced to work/drive very long hours with insufficient rest. At best, take two Xanax before your van ride. Also, ensure that both your life and hospitalization insurance(s) are fully paid up!

Of course Starbucks grew into a multi-billion dollar company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries by selling poor products that nobody wanted to buy.

All the evidence points to the obvious fact that they know much more about quality coffee and much more about delivering quality products to customers than you. I'm fairly certain of one thing that Starbucks did NOT do that helped them to grow into such a successful company;

They didn't take advice from you!

Are you claiming that the coffee and food are quality?? Shame on you. Now go and wash your mouth out with soap before you say anything else as ridiculous as that!

You are simply demonstrating that you are one more person who knows much less about coffee and customer service than the company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries. You are the one pegging the ThaiVisa "Ridiculous" meter!

Ok now you have lost me. Customer service? Starbucks? What planet are you on bro, seriously.

Clearly you know nothing about coffee. Your suggesting that warmed diluted buffallo dung in a glass/cup/mug is coffee? Perhaps only to the ample simpletons in this world that should know better. Notice how well Starbucks seem to do in countries with absolutley no coffee culture?

You were lost long before you ran into me! Clearly the people who run Starbucks, the company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries, know much more about coffee and customer service than you. Or does Bikkii Coffee have more stores in more countries?

And when you start talking about simpletons, it's obvious that you were looking in a mirror.

The logo is indeed rather starbucks like and any muslim influence to my eye rests on the fact that the bloke in the middle of the logo must be the prophet Mohammad smoking a bong.

Having said that, it is clear Mr Bung is not trying to copy star bucks here, otherwise he's be urinating into a cup and selling it for $6 a pop.

Of course Starbucks grew into a multi-billion dollar company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries by selling poor products that nobody wanted to buy.

All the evidence points to the obvious fact that they know much more about quality coffee and much more about delivering quality products to customers than you. I'm fairly certain of one thing that Starbucks did NOT do that helped them to grow into such a successful company;

They didn't take advice from you!

Are you claiming that the coffee and food are quality?? Shame on you. Now go and wash your mouth out with soap before you say anything else as ridiculous as that!

You are simply demonstrating that you are one more person who knows much less about coffee and customer service than the company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries. You are the one pegging the ThaiVisa "Ridiculous" meter!

The logo is indeed rather starbucks like and any muslim influence to my eye rests on the fact that the bloke in the middle of the logo must be the prophet Mohammad smoking a bong.

Having said that, it is clear Mr Bung is not trying to copy star bucks here, otherwise he's be urinating into a cup and selling it for $6 a pop.

Of course Starbucks grew into a multi-billion dollar company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries by selling poor products that nobody wanted to buy.

They didn't take advice from you!

As in most situations, there are two sides to this story. I doubt seriously that anyone with more than eight functioning brain cells would disagree that this gentleman's logo does, indeed, bear a striking resemblance to Starbucks internationally recognizable trademark. And Starbucks does have a legal right to protect their property. However, the serious risk that Starbucks runs is in alienating their customer base by being perceived as "beating up" on some very low level street vendor, who poses precisely zero threat to their market share. It is not very likely that anyone stopping at the "Starbung" cart for a cup of coffee mistakes his coffee for that of his better known competitor. Were the legal and marketing teams at Starbucks possessed of any sense of proportion, or for that matter, any sense of marketing savvy, they would either ignore the mosquito in the room, or they would use his presence as an opportunity to poke fun at themselves by coming up with a humorous advertisement pointing directly at the situation, thereby turning this to their advantage. But such is the short sightedness of multinational corporations. And it's also highly unlikely that I'll ever again part with any of my personal baht to the profit of Starbucks.

And when the next fourteen coffee carts start sporting the Starbucks logo? Then one coffee shop, then five shops, and then when Starbucks does go into a courtroom it will be "Well, you let all these other people use your logo!" Starbucks does not just have a legal right to protect their property (logo), they have a responsibility to do so. I strongly suspect that the "legal and marketing teams" at the Starbucks company have substantially more expertise in this than you do.

How many times does this need to be explained ??? Starbucks has to protect it's company's logo.

BM Rametindallas explained it very well in the other Starbucks thread.

If Starbucks knowingly lets one person violate their trademark, then they have to let anyone violate their trademark. Once the precedent has been set, (that you don't care who uses your trademark) then any large company can come in and do what the small offender did and there would be nothing Starbucks could do about it. You can't have selective enforcement. It is costing Starbucks much more in legal fees and bad publicity that even ten pushcarts like Mr. Bung runs but they have to protect their trademark or lose all rights to it. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand.

Another point would be, why does it make a difference if the thief is small time or big time; you have still been robbed. Let me personalize it for you. Would it make a difference to you and your family if a poor thief with six children to feed robbed your house or a gang of professional thieves robbed your house? You suffer a loss in both cases. With your logic, you would let the poor thief off with no punishment (and even allow him to reoffend) and prosecute the professional gang. What would your family (stockholders), that your are responsible to, say about your generous spirit?

<snip> ...trademark violation is much more damaging to a company to ignore, than copyright violations. Why do you think Starbucks is spending so much money on these two 'little' guys? Why do you think they are willing to accept so much bad publicity. It is because they HAVE to. They have spent millions building their trademark and have stockholders' investments to protect. It would be corporate malfeasance to not protect their trademark.Here's the difference. If copyright violators are not prosecuted, the owner of the copyrighted material is only out money but if trademark violation is not prosecuted (knowingly allowed), the owner of the trademark loses control of the trademark and everyone is legally free to use it. Everyone could then open any coffee shop and legally call it Starbucks and use the exact Starbucks logo. <snip>

Wow, so many Starbuck's haters....I have always enjoyed the coffee at Starbucks. OK, some people

think the coffee is a little overpriced, However I have always been a "black " coffee drinker, not so

expensive. I can sit for an hour or so; read THEIR newspaper in a SPOTLESS environment and

use my computer to catch up on my emails. all AIR CONDITIONED all this for the price of a

cup of coffee......OR I could go to 7/11, get a cup of instant rot gut coffee for 14 B and sit on

the sidewalk in the heat and car exhaust.............I'll choose Starbucks............

Many folks in Khonkaen pop into the S&P store next door at the Tukom Center for a steaming cup where they can pay with plastic if desired, then step into Starbucks and enjoy all those things you mentioned.

And they would be called ............freeloaders.

Well now, how can you say that when the Star staff are reported to never have cared? Your moral imperative is a first world virtue that doesn't seem to have legs in a land where everybody eats off of one plate, patrons schlep their own whisky to restaurants and pubs, and people routinely carry in their own food and grog to golf courses.

And in a land where the number one principle is fake rolex, fake handbags, and fake copy-copy-copy every other product, business idea, trademark, and logo in sight

Instead of the predominant fake-copy-fake; Perhaps Thailand should instead rely on the intellectual and inventive prowess of the Thai people.

Agree and disagree. Why does Starbucks do nothing about all the tee shirts sold with their logo? Free advertising right?

So if they are so worried about their trademark they should file a case against everyone who wears a tee shirt with the starbucks logo, with out permission from starbucks. So to an extent it's hypocracy. Just a multinational trying to show their bullying power. I do hope that the coffee vendor comes out on top.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Starbucks is in the business of selling coffee, tea, snacks and other like products in their coffee shops/stores. And the bunghole-boy in Bangkok is using a faked copy of the Starbucks owned logo to sell coffee!

Wow, so many Starbuck's haters....I have always enjoyed the coffee at Starbucks. OK, some people

think the coffee is a little overpriced, However I have always been a "black " coffee drinker, not so

expensive. I can sit for an hour or so; read THEIR newspaper in a SPOTLESS environment and

use my computer to catch up on my emails. all AIR CONDITIONED all this for the price of a

cup of coffee......OR I could go to 7/11, get a cup of instant rot gut coffee for 14 B and sit on

the sidewalk in the heat and car exhaust.............I'll choose Starbucks............

Many folks in Khonkaen pop into the S&P store next door at the Tukom Center for a steaming cup where they can pay with plastic if desired, then step into Starbucks and enjoy all those things you mentioned.

In that case, the manager of that Starbucks store should be instructing and training his staff to tell the freeloaders to take their S&P coffee and drink it elsewhere. It's a private business, not a publicly-funded library or rest center!

Rather a nice story. Starbucks is totally in the right legally but Starbungs is winning public sympathy by standing up to the wealthy foreign aggressor and risking going to jail.

If Starbucks had any sense they would have ignored him. Now they are in it they should turn it around by buying him out or paying a designer to make him a really nice logo that doesn't look like theirs.

A company like Starbucks cannot simply ignore all the people who attempt to steal their trademark logo.

See --> Starbucks has to protect it's company's logo.

And if Starbucks now pays out cash to him; how many other "Coffee Carts" will then appear with their own hands out ??

There's only one course of appropriate action: Starbucks boycott! In fact, Starbucks protest! Stop the bullies. Who's in?

I just love that chirping sound crickets make...

(I wonder how many thousands of cups of coffee Starbucks sold while I was typing that.)

((Oops, there go another few thousand.))

I never drink coffee, but just as my personal form of protest for all the David & Goliath nonsense being posted here, I think I'll run out & get one of their frappacinos or something.

Just last night I was walking by a Starbucks store here in Chiang Mai. Didn't intend to go in there. But when I walked by and saw the store, I went in and ordered a nice large ice tea as my own deliberate response to all the Starbucks-hating chirpers here! It did make it taste just that much better!

I love those staged police photo ops. They are a hoot. The victim pointing at the money. The thief sitting down but still pointing at the money. It's like; without all the pointing nobody would notice all that money sitting on the table! Looks like an elementary school theater production!

This is the Lehman Brothers perspective on corporate ethics and responsibility. What you fail to mention is that Starbucks deliberately structured their operation in the UK in order to avoid any tax liability.and as a consequence deny that they have ever made a profit ( cf the comments to their US shareholders about being extremely pleased with the profit from UK operations). I'm not convinced by the maniacal rantings of someone on Forbes online suggesting that a mob had blackmailed Starbucks into paying the tax they wanted to avoid: in fact it was the CONSERVATIVE govt. Not even Labour.

Frankly I don't see much of a distinction between between some of the corruption in Thailand and that undertaken by tax avoiding corporations....in both cases the $$$$$ goes to people who are not entitled to it

As for Starbung, I see no real similarity with other brand ripoffs. No-one, absolutely no-one, would EVER be confused between these 2 brands and the matter is so trivial it should be thrown out of court

As far as Starbucks operations in Britain:

I'm going to leave out all the quotes on whether the British NHS is good or bad and all the quotes on a "nanny/welfare state" Britain. Because, IMO, they are not relevant.

Starbucks in Britain followed the applicable tax laws. Period! That's the important point. No individual or corporation is legally or ethically required to pay any more taxes than they are required to by law.

Tax avoidance is using applicable tax laws to pay the least amount of taxes that you are required to pay. There is nothing legally or ethically wrong with that. And 99.99% plus of all individuals and businesses do exactly that. That is exactly what Starbucks did in Britain. Nothing legally or ethically wrong with it at all.

Tax evasion is an individual or business performing illegal acts to evade paying legally required taxes. Acts such as not reporting income, misreporting types of income, claiming deductions that are not valid, etc. Starbucks in Britain DID NOT do any of this.

If Starbucks knowingly lets one person violate their trademark, then they have to let anyone violate their trademark. Once the precedent has been set, (that you don't care who uses your trademark) then any large company can come in and do what the small offender did and there would be nothing Starbucks could do about it. You can't have selective enforcement. It is costing Starbucks much more in legal fees and bad publicity that even ten pushcarts like Mr. Bung runs but they have to protect their trademark or lose all rights to it. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand.

Another point would be, why does it make a difference if the thief is small time or big time; you have still been robbed. Let me personalize it for you. Would it make a difference to you and your family if a poor thief with six children to feed robbed your house or a gang of professional thieves robbed your house? You suffer a loss in both cases. With your logic, you would let the poor thief off with no punishment (and even allow him to reoffend) and prosecute the professional gang. What would your family (stockholders), that your are responsible to, say about your generous spirit?

<snip>

The OP is about trademark violation and trademark violation is much more damaging to a company to ignore, than copyright violations. Why do you think Starbucks is spending so much money on these two 'little' guys? Why do you think they are willing to accept so much bad publicity. It is because they HAVE to. They have spent millions building their trademark and have stockholders' investments to protect. It would be corporate malfeasance to not protect their trademark. Here's the difference. If copyright violators are not prosecuted, the owner of the copyrighted material is only out money but if trademark violation is not prosecuted (knowingly allowed), the owner of the trademark loses control of the trademark and everyone is legally free to use it. Everyone could then open any coffee shop and legally call it Starbucks and use the exact Starbucks logo. <snip>

I used to be a Starbucks customer, but abject greed in the corporate world like this totally turns me off to their (overpriced) products. There are times when corporate jackasses should simple ignore small vendors who present absolutely no threat to these corporate behemoths multi-multi billion dollars profit centers. All they have accomplished is to tarnish their own image, if you want to call moving your operation offshore to avoid US taxes and image. "He is without sin should cast the first stone'. I hope they win in Thai court and have the 'damages' are reduced to 1 baht and a slap on the hand. These corporate giants have better things to do other than pursuing Intelligent Property suits against some poor individual pushing around a hand cart -- you know, like evading their social responsibility to pay taxes. I won't go to Starbucks again. I found a place in Chiang Mai that makes coffee drinks that are just as good as Star(Big)Bucks for less than half the price. Star(Mega)Bucks would probably send out the hounds in an attempt to prove they pirated their 'specific coffee making methods'. Big government and Big Corporation have one thing in common -- Big Greed.

Connda; If you would read some of the previous comments on this topic, you would know that Starbucks cannot "simple ignore small vendors who present absolutely no threat to these corporate behemoths". It isn't that simple. Read rametindallas's comment below. Besides that, Starbucks gave those copy-cat thieves the opportunity to cease their illegal actions before Starbucks started any legal actions against them.

Starbucks has been very responsible in their actions.

If Starbucks knowingly lets one person violate their trademark, then they have to let anyone violate their trademark. Once the precedent has been set, (that you don't care who uses your trademark) then any large company can come in and do what the small offender did and there would be nothing Starbucks could do about it. You can't have selective enforcement. It is costing Starbucks much more in legal fees and bad publicity that even ten pushcarts like Mr. Bung runs but they have to protect their trademark or lose all rights to it. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand.

Another point would be, why does it make a difference if the thief is small time or big time; you have still been robbed. Let me personalize it for you. Would it make a difference to you and your family if a poor thief with six children to feed robbed your house or a gang of professional thieves robbed your house? You suffer a loss in both cases. With your logic, you would let the poor thief off with no punishment (and even allow him to reoffend) and prosecute the professional gang. What would your family (stockholders), that your are responsible to, say about your generous spirit?

Connda;

Your statement that Starbucks has "moving your operation offshore to avoid US taxes" is factually incorrect and zany nonsense.

Starbucks has thousands of stores in the U.S. and it's corporate headquarters is in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Your statement that Starbucks is " evading their social responsibility to pay taxes" is again factually incorrect and more zany nonsense.

Starbucks DID NOT evade paying taxes. They used applicable tax laws to pay the least amount of taxes that they are required to pay. And 99.99% plus of all individuals and businesses do exactly that. That is exactly what Starbucks did in Britain. Nothing legally, ethically, or socially wrong with it at all.

Tax evasion is an individual or business performing illegal acts to evade paying legally required taxes. Acts such as not reporting income, misreporting types of income, claiming deductions that are not valid, etc. Starbucks in Britain DID NOT do any of this.

Your comment " Star(Mega)Bucks would probably send out the hounds in an attempt to prove they pirated their 'specific coffee making methods'." is yet more zany nonsense.

If your favored Chiang Mai coffee house does not start using the Starbucks logo in an intent to deceive customers or take some action to deceive people that they are making Starbucks coffee, etc; They have very little to worry about any legal action from Starbucks.

Well, that's exactly the point I was making....cheap, tasteless, sugary crap in a seemingly endless choice of minor variations on a theme, of course that will appeal in the US market. How could it not, given, As I acknowledged, it is well-marketed. But the home-spun hype and the Ma and Pa Kettle clientele will not work everywhere.

The coffee spot on 1st floor of Amarin was one of the original coffee shops in BKK. It has been in the same location for 30 years, plus . It's no more a threat to Starbucks than Starbung.

But yes, Starbucks does well in appealing to the lowest common denominator..and making them feel it's something special ( the same branding strategy as many American food companies). Enjoy.

Yes, it's the coffee equivalent of Kraft processed cheese...bland , appeals to the mass market but very cleverly promoted and marketed . Someone said hi-so. I don't think so....closer to McDonald's end of the scale

Of course Starbucks grew into a multi-billion dollar company with over 19,000 stores in 62 countries by selling " coffee equivalent of Kraft processed cheese" that nobody wanted to buy.

I'm fairly certain of one thing that Starbucks did NOT do that helped them to grow into such a successful company; They didn't take advice from you!

Well, they provided products (coffee, tea, and others) and services that people like enough for them to grow into over 19,000 stores in 62 countries. Let me state "62 countries" again since, apparently, you didn't read it well enough to notice the first time. Perhaps some Starbucks coffee would help you!

You say "But yes, Starbucks does well in appealing to the lowest common denominator"

You certainly are pegging the "Low-Class Snob Meter" with that one!

I believe that these two items on Khun JSixpack's list are apt replies to your comment. Especially the ", not that they would know anyway!"

• Starbucks coffee tastes like Starbucks coffee--not what some think coffee should taste like, not that they would know anyway;
• Some need to cling to a kind of reverse snobbery for illusory self-affirmation.

Arms and weapon organisation here is that of a thirld world country, buy some ammo here get some guns there, mixed up stuff like drives maintenance costs at astronomical high levels. They would done also a lot better having chosen the Dassault Rafaele. Saab is a struggeling company, if I remember it right, there was a chicken meat deal involved for the fighters buy, maybe this time time they trade mold rice for some more Gripen! Corruption at high leves

ls because the costs are to be paid by the tax payer!

Agreed, except that I don't believe that choosing the Dassault Rafaele would make any difference. Saab Gripen, Dassault Rafaele, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon,........; If they don't have the necessary maintenance, and support organization it won't matter which aircraft they buy. The shiny aircraft is only a small part of the whole.

I remeber seeing articles on the Russian jets supposedly better than F15 /F16 super hornest and Australai was concerned about Indonesia buying them... Until they crashed 3 with poor training.

I mean Thai Pilots being On the ball when Facebooks goes off on the Iphone? Come on get real!

Right! Training (pilots and support crews), maintenance, and (now) electronics. Those are more important than the shiny airframe.

Last month I watched a documentary movie "Six Days in June" on the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. I believe it's on Youtube. Fantastic documentary. It's very informative on the value of excellence in training and planning. In one day, as a result of superior planning, and superior training (of both pilots and ground crews), the IAF totally destroyed the numerically superior air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

The ground crews were just as important. I read in another source that the IAF ground crews were so well trained that they were able to refuel and rearm their aircraft in ten minutes. That provided an critical increase in the sortie rate of the numerically smaller IAF.