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What is a descriptiveness refusal?

Written by Jan Buza

Co-founder of Trama

A descriptiveness refusal occurs when the USPTO examiner determines the applied-for mark merely describes a characteristic, quality, function, or feature of the goods or services it covers. The mark fails to function as a source identifier because any competitor could legitimately use the same term to describe their offering.

"SuperFast" for a car brand describes a characteristic directly. "Jaguar" for a car brand does not; the connection requires inference. The latter is registrable; the former is not without proof of acquired distinctiveness.

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