A Shanghai coffee company has been fined 500,000 yuan (64,000 U.S. dollars) for infringing on the trademark of the United States-based Starbucks coffeehouse chain.

The Shanghai Municipal Higher People's Court also ordered the Shanghai Xingbake Cafe to change its name and make a public apology to Starbucks in local newspaper, the Xinmin Evening News.

In 2003, the Starbucks Corporation and President Starbucks Coffee Company, a franchised Starbucks operator in Shanghai, filed a lawsuit against the Shanghai Xingbake Cafe and its subsidiary on the Nanjing Road, claiming Shanghai Xingbake had violated the rule of fair competition and infringed upon the trademark of U.S. Starbucks by using Xingbake and "starbuck" in its company name and business activities.

Shanghai Xingbake and its Nanjing Road branch also used a green logo similar to that of Starbucks on its menus, cafe windows, receipts and business cards. It has a picture of coffee cup in the circle, instead of a mermaid.

The court ruled that Shanghai Xinbake, established in 2000, had competed illegally by using the name Xingbake, the name Starbucks is using in China. The Chinese character "Xing" means "star", and the characters "ba" and "ke" sound together like "bucks".

The court ruled that Shanghai Xingbake had intentionally used Xingbake in its name and thus infringed the trademark of U.S. Starbucks.

Starbucks, the world's biggest coffee chain operator, registered its trademark Starbucks, Xingbake, the Chinese translation for Starbucks, and its logo, a green mermaid in a circle, in 1996 and 1999.

Starbucks had more than 200 outlets in 21 cities on the Chinese mainland by Oct. 1 last year. It opened its first store in 1999.

Source: Xinhua