Seattle Trademark Lawyer

It pays to be strategic in describing one’s goods and services when applying to register a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Following are some considerations:

• Be vague but accurate. Generally, the vaguer a description is, the more intellectual property “real estate” one gets in the resulting trademark registration. An applicant needs to be accurate, but the more words it uses to describe the goods or services associated with its trademark, the more it limits its claim. To get the broadest claim, say “shirts,” for example, not “women’s long-sleeved silk t-shirts.”
• Consider a narrow description. Though broad claims are often best, sometimes it makes sense to describe goods and services with more specificity. Narrow claims can help put distance between an application and a prior filing, which can reduce the chances of a drawing a likelihood of confusion objection.
• Consider an “off-target” description. Ideally, a trademark owner’s application would cover its core goods or services. But sometimes that’s not possible — either because the trademark owner’s core offerings are illegal at the federal level (say, because they involve marijuana), or because a prior filing would block such an application. An “off-target” description that omits the trademark owner’s core offerings can sometimes make a more limited registration possible. The umbrella of protection that extends from such a registration — even one that does not cover the applicant’s core goods and services — is often much better than no registration at all.
• Minimize descriptiveness and genericness objections. Being smart in describing the goods and services can help avoid a descriptiveness objection. The PTO can deny an application if it immediately conveys information about the associated good or service. While descriptions need to be forthright, trademark owners need not invite this objection with careless wording. In this respect, a vague-but-accurate description can minimize a “merely descriptive” objection. The same is true with avoiding genericness objections. If the applicant defines the goods or services as being the same as the mark, the PTO has no choice but to deny the application.
• Use the PTO’s pre-approved descriptions. Adopting one of the thousands of descriptions the PTO has already blessed reduces the chance the PTO will quibble with the description. Less importantly, but also a bonus, using a pre-approved description enables a TEAS-PLUS filing, which saves $50 per class. Of course, such descriptions are only appropriate if they are accurate and otherwise suit the trademark owner’s needs. Otherwise, a strategic free-form description is the ticket.