Decisions · 86075950
In re Tapco International Corporation
Serial No. 86075950 · Decided 2017-04-28 · Other
What happened
The Board refused Tapco’s application to register KLEER ADHESIVES for PVC construction adhesives that dry opaque or color-matched, finding the name deceptive because KLEER sounds like “clear,” many competing adhesives are sold and advertised as clear, and a clear-drying finish is a real advantage that would sway buyers.
The marks
Applicant
KLEER ADHESIVES
"Adhesives for the building construction industry, namely, the bonding of PVC building materials; industrial adhesives for coating and sealing of PVC building materials, all of the foregoing curing optically opaque, color-matched, or otherwise non-transparent" in International Class 1; "Adhesive mortar for building purposes, namely, the bonding, coating, and sealing of PVC building materials, all of the foregoing curing optically opaque, color-matched, or otherwise non-transparent" in International Class 19
Why this decision is significant
The affirmed member of the precedential consolidated KLEER opinion: applying the Budge deceptiveness test to a phonetic misspelling where the identification itself concedes the goods dry opaque, with materiality turning on objective product advantages of a clear finish. Shared rating across the three-application cluster.
Research significance is Trademark Valet's editorial rating of how useful a decision is to practitioners. It is not a statement of precedential weight — that is the separate Precedential field, which comes from the Board.
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