I didn't say it was a free pass to do anything. You can't lie about the company, for example. But that would be libel, not trademark infringement. As long as it's obvious to consumers that your use of the trademark is not on behalf of or authorised by the company, then it's not trademark infringement.
And yes, simply adding "sucks" would pretty much always be a free pass against trademark infringement , except in really contrived scenarios, like if the trademark was a brand of vacuum cleaners :)
That said, the Dumb Starbucks example is interesting, I think that's in a grey area, the kind of edge case you're talking about. Starbucks might well be able to demonstrate that some customers thought it was official (albeit obscure) marketing effort by them, especially because it's a coffee shop.
I didn't say it was a free pass to do anything. You can't lie about the company, for example. But that would be libel, not trademark infringement. As long as it's obvious to consumers that your use of the trademark is not on behalf of or authorised by the company, then it's not trademark infringement.
And yes, simply adding "sucks" would pretty much always be a free pass against trademark infringement , except in really contrived scenarios, like if the trademark was a brand of vacuum cleaners :)
That said, the Dumb Starbucks example is interesting, I think that's in a grey area, the kind of edge case you're talking about. Starbucks might well be able to demonstrate that some customers thought it was official (albeit obscure) marketing effort by them, especially because it's a coffee shop.