Starbucks Emerges Victorious in Trade Secret Lawsuit Over Coffee-Flavored Lip Balm

A federal judge has dismissed a 2019 lawsuit against Starbucks, filed by Balmuccino LLC, accusing the coffee giant of stealing its coffee-flavored lip balm trade secrets. The judge ruled that Balmuccino LLC waited too long to file the case in federal court.

The trade secret claim against Starbucks is over after a federal judge dismisses the lawsuit on technical grounds. The case was said to have been filed after the company launched its S'mores Frapuccino lip gloss in 2019.

According to Courthouse News Service, Starbucks was cleared because the complainant, Balmuccino LLC, waited too long to file the lawsuit in federal court. The latter sued SB for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. Still, U.S. District Judge John Chun explained that the case was tossed out because of the lack of jurisdiction over Starbucks since it was filed in a state court in California.

The judge sided with Starbucks after applying Washington state law instead of the more lenient California state law. He referred to the former to answer whether Balmuccino could still go after its claims after the statute of limitations expired.

"Balmuccino draws on California's more forgiving tolling law to argue that declining to toll the statutes of limitations during the pendency of the state-court action is bad public policy," Judge Chun stated. "Balmuccino may have a point that requiring a plaintiff to concurrently file separate actions in two different jurisdictions is inefficient and laborious. Yet this is the tolling policy that Washington has apparently adopted."

He added, "Even assuming that Balmuccino reasonably asserted personal jurisdiction in California at the outset of litigation, Balmuccino was on notice that it might need to file elsewhere at least as of June 2020, prior to the expiration of the limitations periods lessens the force of its policy argument that it would be unfair or redundant to have to concurrently file multiple suits in multiple jurisdictions."

In response to the dismissal of the lawsuit, Reuters reported that Eduardo Martorell, Balmuccino's lawyer, said they think the case was wrongly decided, so they will appeal the decision or re-file the suit in New York. He added that they would not stop fighting until the courts allow Balmuccino to be heard on the merits.

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