In 2003, the Starbucks Corporation and President Starbucks Coffee Company, a franchised Starbucks operator in Shanghai, filed a lawsuit against the Shanghai Xingbake Cafe and its subsidiary on the Nanjing Road, claiming Shanghai Xingbake had violated the rule of fair competition and infringed upon the trademark of U.S. Starbucks by using Xingbake and "starbuck" in its company name and business activities.
The court ruled that Shanghai Xinbake, established in 2000, had competed illegally by using the name Xingbake, the name Starbucks is using in China. The Chinese character "Xing" means "star", and the characters "ba" and "ke" sound together like "bucks".
