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ARTICLE · 14 JANUARY 2022

In 2021, How Often Did The TTAB Affirm Section 2(e)(1) Mere Descriptiveness Refusals?

Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C.
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I have again reviewed the TTAB's FOIA page (now called the "TTAB Reading Room") in order to estimate the percentage of Section 2(e)(1) mere descriptiveness refusals that were affirmed by the Board during the last calendar year (2021).

United StatesIntellectual Property
John L. Welch
John L. Welch
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I have again reviewed the TTAB's FOIA page (now called the "TTAB Reading Room") in order to estimate the percentage of Section 2(e)(1) mere descriptiveness refusals that were affirmed by the Board during the last calendar year (2021). I counted 92 refusals, of which 84 were affirmed and 8 reversed. That's an affirmance rate of about 91.3%, a five-point rise from last year's 88%.

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Only one of the mere descriptiveness reversals was precedential: namely, the TAVERNA COSTERA case [TTABlogged here], in which the Board declined to apply the doctrine of foreign equivalents because the ordinary American purchaser would not stop and translate a mark comprising words from different languages.

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