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The Zest

Trademark Attorney for Coffee Roasters and Coffee Shops: One Name, Two Kinds of Business

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A trademark attorney for a coffee business clears the name and files it in the classes that match what you actually do: Class 30 for coffee you roast and sell, Class 43 for a café that serves drinks, and sometimes Class 35 for a shop that sells other goods. At Citrus Legal, the first step is Seed, a $650 flat-fee clearance search with a written opinion, done before the name is printed on a bag or painted on a window.

Coffee looks like one business. To the USPTO it's often two or three, and that's where most of the mistakes start.

What a trademark attorney checks for a coffee brand

A roaster sells goods. A shop sells a service. If you roast beans and sell bags, wholesale or online, you're selling coffee, a Class 30 good. If you run a counter and hand people a cortado, you're providing a service, which is Class 43. Plenty of coffee businesses do both, and they need both classes covered.

The difference also changes your proof. The USPTO rule on specimens says a goods specimen must show the mark "on the goods, on containers or packaging for the goods, on labels or tags affixed to the goods," or on a point-of-sale display. For a roaster, that's the bag. A service specimen must show the mark "as used in the sale of the services," including in advertising. For a café, that's the sign, the menu board or an ad for the café. A photo of your bag doesn't prove café services, and a photo of your storefront doesn't prove you sell packaged coffee. The article on specimens covers what gets accepted.

A café name and a coffee brand can block each other. The TMEP, the manual USPTO examining attorneys follow, says the relatedness of food or drink products and restaurant services "may not be assumed." The examiner needs "something more." Coffee is often where that something more shows up. In In re Accelerate, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found COLOMBIANO COFFEE HOUSE for food and drink services related to COLOMBIAN for coffee. The Board's reasoning was simple: coffee is what a coffee house is built around.

That cuts both ways for you. If a roaster in another state registered a name like yours for coffee, your café filing can be refused over it. If you register first for café services, a later roaster with a similar name may run into you. So the search has to check Class 30 and Class 43 together, whichever one you're filing in.

Coffee words are crowded. Roast, bean, brew, grind, cup, crema, daily, ritual. These words show up in coffee names everywhere, and many of them describe coffee outright. A name built from them has two problems. The USPTO may require you to disclaim the descriptive part, and even after you register, your rights in a crowded word reach only so far. In "Quillmoss Coffee Roasters," the word doing the work is Quillmoss. "Coffee Roasters" just tells the buyer what you are. (Quillmoss is invented for this article.) The article on weak wellness words explains why crowded words get narrow protection, and the same reasoning applies to coffee.

Origin and place names need care. Coffee marketing leans on origin: regions, farms, countries, neighborhoods. A name that simply tells buyers where the coffee comes from, or where the café is, can be refused as geographically descriptive. A name that suggests an origin the coffee doesn't have raises a different and worse problem. If you want a place in your name, read the article on geographic names before you commit.

Drink names are separate from the shop name. A signature drink can carry its own trademark if the name works as a brand and not as a description of the drink. Most cafés don't need to file every menu item. I usually suggest clearing the business name first and treating a drink name as a trademark only if it's central to the brand. The article on menu item names goes deeper.

The classes

  • Class 30 covers "Coffee, tea, cocoa." The Nice list includes "coffee," "unroasted coffee beans," "coffee-based beverages" and "filled coffee capsules." If you roast and bag, sell green coffee, or sell bottled coffee drinks, this is your goods class.
  • Class 43 covers "Services for providing food and drink," and the Nice list includes "café services" by name. This is the shop.
  • Class 35 covers retail. The Nice Classification describes it as "the bringing together, for the benefit of others, of a variety of goods." If your shop sells other roasters' beans, grinders and brewing gear, a retail filing may make sense. If you only sell your own coffee, Class 30 usually does the job.
  • Class 21 is where cups and mugs go. Branded mugs are a common add-on for coffee shops, and they're their own class.

Each class has a USPTO base application fee of $350. A roaster with a café usually starts with Class 30 and Class 43.

The right time is before you sign off on the bag design, order the first run of cups and sleeves, or commission the sign. The other moment is expansion. A roaster opening a café, or a café starting to bag beans for retail, is stepping into a class the original name was never cleared for. The search should happen before the new side launches, not after.

Seed is a $650 clearance search with a written opinion. Grove is $2,600: the search, the opinion and the federal application, with procedural Office Actions included. USPTO fees are separate, $350 per class.

For restaurants, packaged food and drinks more broadly, see the food and beverage page.

You can see every flat fee on the all services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first conversation.

Questions about your name? Email us at hello@citrus.legal, or book a paid 30-minute consultation (opens in a new tab) for advice on your specific situation.

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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