What Does the Starbucks Trademark Move Mean for Coffee Culture?

Starbucks has filed a new trademark application with Rospatent, Russia's federal intellectual property office, and received a registration decision. The filing points to a possible return to the Russian market, which the chain left in 2022 after closing all 130 stores. The move matters because it could reshape local coffee culture and put pressure on Stars Coffee, the brand that took over the former stores.

Starbucks entered Russia in 2007 and operated until March 2022, when it halted business and later exited, paying staff six months of wages. In July 2022, Pinskiy&Co and rapper Timati bought the assets for about 500 million rubles and rebranded them as Stars Coffee. As the war situation evolves, the trademark filing signals a possible shift for specialty coffee consumers in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Starbucks recently filed a trademark registration application with the Russian Federal Intellectual Property Office and has received a registration decision, which may mean that this coffee chain giant will return to the Russian market before long. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, Starbucks announced its withdrawal from Russia and closed all 130 of its stores, and its assets were subsequently acquired by a local company and transformed into Stars Coffee. Now, as the international situation changes, the possibility of Starbucks re-entering Russia is increasing, and this development also puts Stars Coffee, which took over its original business, in an awkward position.

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Recently, media reports revealed that Starbucks has submitted a trademark registration application to Russia, and this coffee chain brand may re-enter the Russian market in the short term.

It is understood that Starbucks began opening stores in Russia in 2007 and continued to operate there. By the time the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, affected by Western sanctions against Russia, Starbucks announced in March of that year that it would stop all business activities in Russia, and at the end of May it decided to fully withdraw from the Russian market, closing all 130 stores in the country, while promising to pay local employees six months of wages as compensation.

In July of the same year, Anton Pinsky, founder of the well-known Russian restaurant company Pinskiy&Co, joined forces with Russian rapper Timati to acquire and take over Starbucks' assets in Russia for about 500 million rubles (equivalent to about 6 million US dollars).

Not long after, an image of a girl wearing traditional Russian headwear replaced Starbucks' iconic twin-tailed siren, and a brand called "Stars Coffee" appeared on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, quickly becoming a new option for local coffee consumers.

Three years later, with the evolution of the Russia-Ukraine war situation, the Russian market may usher in a new turning point. According to foreign media reports, in the database of Rospatent, the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property, patents and trademarks, Starbucks' newly submitted trademark registration application has quietly appeared.

In fact, as early as the middle of last year, Russian media reported that Starbucks had submitted multiple trademark registration applications to the Russian Federal Intellectual Property Office, covering names such as "Starbucks Coffee" and "Frappuccino," involving categories such as freshly made beverages and instant coffee products, with a total of 14 trademark registration applications submitted.

According to the latest reports, the brand's registration application entered the review stage in May 2024 and a registration decision was made on March 4, 2025. At present, Starbucks already has registered trademarks in Classes 21, 30, 35 and 43 of the International Classification of Goods and Services (ICGS). From this it can be inferred that this coffee giant, which closed stores and withdrew because of the international situation, may return to the Russian market and resume operations before long.

However, this news may not be good news for Stars Coffee, which replaced Starbucks in Russia. Previously, this "successor" that took over Starbucks' original stores had asked a local court to terminate the legal protection of Starbucks' trademarks, in order to avoid infringing the American company's trademark rights when expanding its market layout.

Now Starbucks has shown signs of returning to the Russian market, and Stars Coffee, whose products and services are extremely similar to Starbucks', will undoubtedly fall into an awkward position.

The Telegram channel "Mash," citing anonymous sources, said that someone is asking about the possibility of buying back the chain stores Starbucks sold before withdrawing from Russia, and the channel revealed that the acquisition price is about 270 million US dollars. However, the current owner of Stars Coffee has not yet responded to the news of selling the business, nor has it confirmed related information such as the acquisition offer circulating online.

In response, analysts at the Russian business development platform Kokoc Group pointed out that as the Russia-Ukraine war gradually approaches its end, as many as 350 foreign companies may resume business in the Russian market. But some political scientists believe that after Western brands return to Russia, they will not be able to develop under the original conditions: the market has already been occupied by local manufacturers after the outbreak of the war.

Image source: online screenshot

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.