Gotta love it when normal people who were being bullied by large corporations maintain their ground until the big corporation gives up. Regardless of tort reform and any such country-specific issue, the fact that artisan David can win against corporate Goliath is reassuring to those of us who aren’t way up in the corporate ladder. Even those who are, in fact, CEOs of global corporations should take notice as smaller businesses adapt more quickly than the corporate equivalent of dinosaurs do.

Case in point: artisan roaster and Tulsa café DoubleShot Coffee Company in marketing/legal conflict with corporate giant Starbucks (*$, among CoffeeGeeks).

Result: DoubleShot Coffee Company won

Starbucks was using intimidation tactics (threat of a lawsuit) to get DoubleShot Coffee Company to change their name (because Starbucks has a coffee-based canned drink trademarked “Starbucks DoubleShot(tm)”). IMHO, that was a bad move for Starbucks, in terms of good will from the wide world of quality coffee. But now that Starbucks has backed down from the potentially suing DoubleShot, they definitely have some egg on their (corporate) face.

Whether or not anyone agrees with anything Starbucks does, whether or not you think that Starbucks had a leg to stand on, in a court of law, you might agree that local cafés and coffee roasters serve an important purpose on the global stage.