This entire trademark wrangling finds its roots to those early days in 2004 when Ethiopia was preparing to file an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register the names Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe. Though Starbucks won't discuss the issue in public, I found out that at least three reasons are driving the company’s decisions which might bear risks to its own brand . In 2004, just before filing their applications to register the coffee brands, Ethiopian government officials discovered that Starbucks had already submitted an application to trademark “Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo.” The government attempted to engage Starbucks in discussions because it had become evident that the company’s application might jeopardize Ethiopia’s plans to trademark the name, Sidamo. The company later dropped its application to register “Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo” but only after, the National Coffee Association (NCA), whom Starbucks is the influential member , had fil...