Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Starbucks Corp., the world's biggest coffee-shop owner, said it lost a final appeal in a trademark dispute with South Korean company Elpreya Co.

The Supreme Court of Korea, the highest in the nation, yesterday dismissed the Seattle-based coffee giant's appeal against the Patent Court of Korea's ruling on the case, which claimed the South Korean coffee-shop chain infringed its trademark, Starbucks said in an e-mailed statement today.

``Although Starbucks is disappointed with the Korean Supreme Court's ruling, the company respects the Korean highest court's decision,'' Starbucks said in the statement.

The Korean company sells coffee it calls ``Starpreya'' in cups with a green concentric logo surrounding a woman's face. The product is usually sold through its networks of roving trucks.

``I welcome the court's ruling and I'm so happy with it,'' Kim Woo Ki, Elpreya's chairman, said today in a telephone interview. ``I never thought I'd lose in this lawsuit,''

Starbucks opened its first Korean shop in 1999 after signing a license contract in 1997 with Shinsegae Co., the operator of South Korea's largest discount-store chain. The joint venture opened its 185th shop in Korea on Dec. 12, according to the Web site of Starbucks Coffee Korea Co.

The coffee chain's goal of increasing its shops more than threefold to 40,000 worldwide has triggered a spate of trademark disputes. Starbucks is rapidly adding new shops to secure coffee drinkers from Dunkin' Donuts Inc. and other chains.

The U.S. company won a trademark infringement lawsuit last January in China, stopping Shanghai XingBaKe Coffee Shop Ltd. from using the name, which can be translated as Starbucks in English. It won another case in China last year and has also taken action in Japan.

Elpreya was named after the Norse goddess Freja, with the letters changed to ease pronunciation by Koreans, Kim said in October.

Starbucks will enter India by tying up with Kishore Biyani, head of the country's biggest publicly traded retailer, and V.P. Sharma, president of the U.S. company's Indonesian franchise.

Starbucks will form a venture with New Horizons, itself a joint project 51 percent owned by Sharma, president director of PT Mitra Adiperkasa, and 49 percent held by Biyani, founder of Pantaloon Retail India Ltd., Sharma said in a telephone interview yesterday. He declined to provide financial details or say how much of the venture the Seattle-based company will own.

To contact the reporter on this story: Seonjin Cha in Seoul at scha2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 11, 2007 20:30 EST