Tag: trademark database search

The use of a foreign word to avoid a likelihood of confusion with the English equivalent will generally not work. The doctrine of foreign equivalents is not an absolute rule, but a guide and applies when it is likely that the ordinary American purchaser would stop and translate the foreign word into its English equivalent. The doctrine of foreign equivalents is used to determine similarity of meaning and connotation, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently addressed the doctrine in In re California Faucets, Inc.

California Faucets sought to register the mark GAVIOTA in connection with luxury bathroom faucets, shower heads, tub spouts, and other plumbing fixtures and fittings. The United States Patent and Trademark Office refused registration of California Faucets GAVIOTA mark on the ground that it was likely to cause confusion with the prior registered mark SEAGULL for “water purification units and parts therefor.”

Turning to the relatedness of goods factor first. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found that “water purification units and parts therefor” are related to various bathroom fixtures. The evidence showed that the Registrant’s water purification units were installed for drinking water purposes. But because this limitation was not present in the description of goods for the SEAGULL mark, the TTAB found that the water purification units could be installed in any part of a home including the bathroom.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board needs to stop being willfully blind to the realities of the marketplace. No consumer installs water purification units in their bathrooms, nor are these units sold in the same areas of a big box retailer like Home Depot or Lowe’s. But it again highlights the importance of including the relatedness of goods factor in your trademark search process.

With respect to the marks, GAVIOTA means “seagull” in Spanish. It has no definition English. Because the record showed an appreciable number of Americans speak Spanish, the TTAB found it was appropriate to apply the doctrine of foreign equivalents. And while the doctrine of foreign equivalents applies only to the meaning of the mark, the TTAB found it was so strong that it outweighed the dissimilarity of the marks in terms of sight and sound.

As a trademark searcher you should pay attention to foreign words. However, because the foreign equivalent doctrine applies only to prevalent languages spoken in the United States, do not get bogged down searching every possible foreign language. One good resource to use is Google Translate. If you find a foreign word or words for the mark you are trying to register, you can easily incorporate them into your trademark search process by using BOB’s multi-name search functionality.

The use of misspelled trademarks may be waning a little in the wake of the human name trend, but that does not mean it has gone away. For example, there is a new lending company that landed on the mark THRYFT for its business name. Misspelled words may be a way to convey a compelling brand story and it certainly may open up a number of available top-level domain names. Unfortunately, what it will not likely do is avoid a problem with an already registered trademark.

Like reversing words, spelling variations are unlikely to avoid a likelihood of confusion with a prior registered mark. A misspelling is of some importance when evaluating the similarity of the marks factor, but unless the misspelling results in what is essentially a coined term, it is unlikely to avoid confusion. An example of this is a 2016 decision from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board for the marks INDI and INDY for clothing. In this case, while the Board found the marks are visually and phonetically similar, the spelling of the INDI word rendered it meaningless whereas the INDY word had a distinct auto racing meaning.

Trademark searchers need to be aware of possible misspelled trademarks that could pose a problem the trademarks they are considering adopting. Unless you are a linguist, the possible alternate spellings of word may not be readily apparent to you. One way to determine if a possible alternate spelling exists is to use – what for it – the Alternate Spelling Finder. This tool will identify possible alternate spellings for any word.

The problem with the Alternate Spelling Finder is two fold. First, you need to determine how realistic some of the proposed alternate spellings are. Second, if you conclude the alternate spellings are realistic, it is impracticable to include all of the spelling variations in your trademark search. With a trade search tool like BOB, you could use the multi-name search functionality and search all the possible spelling variations at a reasonable cost. But there is an easier way to do it and a much lower cost.

Use BOB’s Wild Card search functionality and use the $ and ? symbols. These symbols represent any number of space or non-space characters. For example, let’s say you use the Alternate Spelling Finder to search the word “BABY.” You will get about 24 alternate spellings and all but a couple begin with the letter B and end with the letter Y with about 2-3 letters in between. To capture the spelling variations of the word BABY, you enter in the Wild Card Field B???Y. This search will look for words that begin with the letter “B” end with the letter “Y” and have 2-3 letters in between regardless of what those letters may be. And you only pay for 1 search not 24 searches.

Bloomberg recently reported that first names are all the rage with startups, such as CASPER, MARCUS, and OSCAR. According to Steve Manning – founder of the Igor naming agency – “short first names change everything as it’s unexpected, less concerned with sounding corporate and serious, and is inherently more human.” Theoretically, this should allow the brand to make a more personal connection with its target customers.

The benefits of adopting a short, first name as your trademark are more than just theoretical. In a 2012 study published by the Journal of Financial Economics, brands with short, easy to pronounce names were viewed more positively by investors. Reducing name length by just one word can boost book-to-market ratios by 2.53 percent or $3.75 million for a medium-size firm. A 2006 study by marketing professor Adam Alter and psychology professor Daniel Oppenheimer found that stocks with easy to pronounce names and tickers outperform their counterparts.

Selecting first names does not guarantee success, and may even raise the stakes for the brand owner. Selecting a first name could mean that customers expect a personal experience throughout the entire experience with the goods or service. It also does not mean that you will have a trademark.

Whether a name is inherently distinctive (i.e., immediately protectable as a trademark upon being used in commerce) or requires proof of secondary meaning (i.e., evidence that the public recognizes name as a trademark) depends on the primary significance of the mark to the purchasing public. The more common it is for an industry to use personal names as identifiers, the more secondary meaning it will be necessary to show. In these circumstances, the name will not be protectable under trademark law unless secondary meaning has been established.

First names are also evaluated for confusion just like any other mark. This means that as trademark searchers we have to search personal names to make sure they are unlikely to cause confusion with a prior registered mark.

Trademark searching is conducted in two phases. The first phase is the preliminary trademark search followed by the comprehensive trademark search. The reason trademark searching follows this process is solely to manage trademark attorney fees and trademark search company costs. Trademark search companies usually charge about $800 for a comprehensive trademark search. A comprehensive trademark search is a search that looks in various databases for common law or unregistered trademarks. If an attorney reviews the comprehensive trademark search report for you, the total cost of a comprehensive trademark search could be $1,200 to $2,000.

A preliminary trademark search costs less than a comprehensive trademark search. A preliminary search looks in the USPTO’s Trademark Electronic Search System for any registered trademarks. A preliminary trademark search conducted by a trademark attorney will cost $300-$700.

AILPA recently released its 2017 Economic Study, and reported that the median cost of a clearance trademark search is $1,100 in trademark attorney fees. This number is based on an outside law firm performing the search. $1,100 is a lot of money to spend on a trademark clearance search, but as legal salaries continue to rise, so will this median number. The national average salary for a first-year associate in a law firm is about $153,000.  In fact, the Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy law firm recently announced that its starting salaries for first-year attorneys was being raised to a whopping $190,000.  The national average of a trademark paralegal is also high at about $55,000. And these numbers do not include other employment expenses like overhead and benefits.

As we discussed before, trademark searching is deceptively complex because of the nuance involved. But a computer can adequately account for the nuance and produce accurate results at a significant discount to the cost of a manual search. This does not mean that computers are here to replace attorneys, paralegals, or other professional trademark searchers. Instead, it is an opportunity to utilize technology to make the trademark clearance process more efficient, and change the way attorneys, paralegals, and professional trademark searchers are used.

Instead of paying hundreds to thousands of dollars in trademark attorney fees and costs from trademark search companies, have BOB conduct the search and the search results interpreted by the outside firm. At $49.99-$14.99 per name, there is no outside firm that can be as cost efficient as BOB.

Trademark dilution is an important concept that every trademark searcher must pay attention to. Trademark dilution in the legal context occurs when a mark or a portion of a mark exists in a crowded field. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that evidence of extensive registration and use of a term by others for similar goods can be powerful evidence of the term’s weakness. If the evidence establishes that the consuming public is exposed to widespread third-party use of similar marks for similar goods, it is relevant to show that a mark is relatively weak and entitled to only a narrow scope of protection.

There is a lot to unpack in what evidence will establish dilution or a crowded field. First, the other marks must be used in connection with related goods or services. Too often trademark searchers mistakenly believe that they need to focus on the marks only. If the goods or services associated with those marks are not related to your goods or services, then those marks to not demonstrate dilution.

Second, while the registration question is easy to determine (i.e., the mark is either registered or it’s not), the use question can be more difficult. All use is not equal, it must be put in context because the objective at the heart of every trademark issue is consumer protection. So the examination of every factor is designed to determine if consumers are likely to be harmed. Moreover, a federal trademark issue must assess what is likely to happen to consumers nationwide, not within a specific geographic area.

With that background, back to the evidence to establish dilution. Limited use of a mark for related goods does not establish dilution. A good example is the restaurant industry and the thousands of single location restaurants. Just because a handful of single location restaurants sharing the same or similar name co-exist in the United States does not mean that the name is diluted. The key is whether the use demonstrates that an appreciable number of consumers are likely to encounter the use of the marks that support the dilution finding.

Why does this matter? It matters because dilution impacts how you assess the similarity of the marks factor. If a mark is weak, then its scope of rights is narrow, which may open the door for differences in the marks to be sufficient to avoid a likelihood of confusion.