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NCA: Coffee Politics’ headline is not misleading, but simply false

In response to this report, Robert Nelson, National Coffee Association President & CEO wrote to Coffee Politics a rebuttal and detailed explanation to NCA’s previous letter. The President's letter says:

"On February 6, 2006 you posted a headline that states “National Coffee Association Has the Records Wrong.” To say that your headline is misleading would be inaccurate; it is not misleading, but simply false. The National Coffee Association’s records are correct and consistent with the record at United States Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO)."

I appreciate Mr. Nelson for taking the time to defend what his organization stands for but I disagree with his statements. Obviously, there are unanswered questions, thus a need for more research. At least, the insistence by the NCA indicates that there is more to those dates. I think the letter by Mr. Nelson hinted to interesting directions despite the grating statements and narrated supposition of motives for our questions. I will try to put some time in to researching this.

However, these claims by the NCA should not be let divert the focus off the main issues. Here are the facts known to us so far:

- NCA opposes and protested against Ethiopia’s efforts to register its well known coffee names as a trademark
- Trademarking coffee names is not illegal in the U.S.
- Starbucks and NCA are on the same page when it comes to opposing Ethiopia’s trademark initiative
- Starbucks VP Dub Hay is head of NCA’s Government Affairs division
- Several US coffee roasters and retailers support Ethiopia’s trademark project

The records disputed by NCA can be found by accessing both Trademark Applications and Registrations Retrieval (TARR) and Trademark Document Retrieval (TDR) systems of the USPTO linked to from the side bar of this page (Status of Ethiopia’s Trademark Apps. in U.S.)

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