CAFC Remands COOKINPELLETS.COM Case to TTAB in Light of BOOKING. COM decision

On July 21st, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded to the TTAB the Board's decision in In re GJ & AM, LLC dba Cookinpellets.com "for further consideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision" in USPTO v. Booking.com B.V. The Board had found COOKINPELLETS.COM to be generic for "Processed wood fuel in the nature of pellets for use in barbecue grills"(class 4), merely descriptive and lacking in acquired distinctiveness for those same goods, and merely descriptive of "Downloadable mobile applications for advertising barbecue grill fuels" (class 9). [TTAB decision here].

The CAFC's order (pdf here) states, rather cryptically:

The case is remanded for further consideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. Although the government contends in its supplemental brief that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (“Board”) holding on acquired distinctiveness is undisturbed by Booking.com, the Board’s acquired distinctiveness holding was “[b]ased on the evidence . . . in connection with the genericness refusal.” The impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Booking.com is best determined by the Board in the first instance.

Read comments and post your comment here.

TTABlogger comment: So is COOKINGPELLETS.COM generic? I suspect the Board will find the term to be merely descriptive and lacking in secondary meaning, even if it sets aside its genericness ruling.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2020.