December 10, 2025 – St. Petersburg-based Kahwa Coffee has won a rare appeal to overturn a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denial. The agency refused to grant Kahwa’s request due to the company’s misapplication of the “doctrine of foreign equivalents,” which typically bars trademarks with meanings in other languages. A federal appellate judge disagreed with the USPTO’s decision that Kahwa, the Arabic word for “coffee,” was too generic.
