Seattle's Best vs. Seattle Strong: Coffee trademark battle heats up

Nestlé has expanded its trademark challenge against Seattle Strong Coffee Company, setting up a clash between a local cold brew company and the Swiss behemoth that now owns Seattle's Best brand.

The expanded challenge filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office now includes a challenge to Seattle Strong's orca logo, Seattle Strong founder Evan Oeflein said.

It comes after Nestlé last year filed paperwork challenging the wording of the company name "Seattle Strong."

In that filing, Nestlé wrote: The dominant portions of the respective marks 'SEATTLE'S BEST' and 'SEATTLE STRONG' on the whole, are highly connotatively similar and begin with the same word," according to Nestle's original challenge.

The company continued by contending that the world "strong" cannot be distinguished from "best" because "consumers are accustomed to encountering strength-related descriptors (e.g., 'strong,' 'bold,' 'dark') in connection with coffee products."

Oeflein said he doesn't buy it.

"It's like The New York Times saying The Seattle Times can't be The Seattle Times because you share the word 'Times,'" Oeflein said.

"'Strong' doesn't mean 'best' and 'best' doesn't mean 'strong,'" he added. "If I give you a really strong cup of coffee, you don't automatically think it's the best cup of coffee."

Both challenges have been consolidated into one case, and the challenge could go to trial next year.

It's a jittery take on David vs. Goliath. Nestlé is one of the world's biggest food companies, with its overseas arm owning brands like Cheerios and KitKat. It boasts a healthy stock of other American household brands, including Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisine, Tombstone and DiGiorno pizzas, Perrier and Sanpellegrino waters, and Nestlé Toll House.

Its coffee portfolio includes Nescafé and Seattle's Best, which it bought off Starbucks in 2022. Seattle's Best has its origins on Pier 70 in Seattle in the 1970s; Starbucks bought the company in 2003 for $72 million in a cash-for-stock deal.

An email to Nestlé this week seeking comment was not returned.

For Oeflein, who started Seattle Strong in 2017 while a student at University of Washington, the expanded challenge could force his company to come up with a full rebrand, and start from scratch with some other name.

"For me it means something when somebody says they grabbed a Seattle Strong in the morning, and that's something we've been doing for almost a decade," said Oeflein, a 29-year-old Wallingford resident.

Seattle Strong got its trademark in 2024, Oeflein said, going through the full process.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reviewed their case and agreed that the company "had reached required distinctiveness with five years in use of commerce," he said. Trademark regulators asked questions of Seattle Strong, and the company had to answer before getting its trademark.

The proposed trademark is published for opposition, so anyone who might object can do so before the trademark is approved, Oeflein said.

Part of the trademark is your duty to police your mark, to protect your mark," he added. "There is essentially zero excuse for a company the size of Nestlé not to police their own marks."

Oeflein is vowing to take the case to trial if need be, and he has reopened a GoFundMe he started to help with legal costs last year after Nestlé's original challenge. As of Tuesday, the GoFundMe had about $11,000 toward its goal of $20,000.

"We're going to fight this through if that's what we need to do," he said.

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This story was originally published July 15, 2026 at 10:43 AM.