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29 November 2006
Addis Ababa – Starbucks CEO, Jim Donald, and his executive team met with Ethiopian President, Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia on Tuesday.
Meles thanked Donald for promoting Ethiopia’s fine brands abroad and explained that the East African country’s main objective to trademarking several of its coffees was to gradually increase export revenues.
Meles added that a worrying trend, due to low coffee prices, was that poorer farmers were replacing coffee trees with a narcotic called Khat.
Starbucks CEO said the United States giant was willing to help poor farmers by promoting Ethiopian fine coffees and shared in the objective of protecting the country’s intellectual property, but that it did not feel the tactics were appropriate.
Starbucks has not yet recognised Ethiopia’s trademark ownership of the specialty coffee names, despite the fact that the prime minister stated that a royalty free licensing agreement is being offered to them and gave assurance that any other business concerns Starbucks has will be addressed in a positive and constructive manner.
The coffee firm presented the view that there are other alternative to trademarks, such as certification marks. Ethiopia has already rejected this option.
Starbucks agreed that it would work with Ethiopia further on the matter, even as Gail Warden, at the Ethiopian Embassy press office in London, claims that Ethiopia has already won trademark rights to some of its brands in the US, EU and Canada.
The Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office has already filed applications to register Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe trademarks in more than 30 countries, and has successfully secured trademarks for all three fine coffees in Canada, for Harar and Yirgacheffe in the European Union and for Yirgacheffe in the USA, said Warden. -Business in Africa Online
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