Caffeine is a stimulant, cannabis is a psychoactive drug—and Starbucks doesn’t want anyone to confuse its product with something that promotes a mostly-illegal substance.
According to Law360, a U.S. District Court judge in New York has ordered an Oregon artist named James Landgraf to repay Starbucks $410,800 — $300,000 for copyright infringement, $99,000 for trademark infringement and $11,580 in attorneys’ fees — for designing a water pipe that looked way too much like the coffee company’s Frappuccino cups.
Starbucks argued that Landgraf and Hitman Glass, an e-commerce site that sold the bong, “willfully intended to create an association with the Starbucks Marks and to capitalize upon the success and popularity of the Starbucks Marks to sell [their] products.”
