Decisions · 88308426
In re Erik Brunetti
Serial No. 88308426 · Decided 2022-08-22 · Other
What happened
The Board affirmed the refusal to register FUCK (standard characters) for cell phone and laptop carrying cases, eyewear cases, spectacles and sunglasses, finding the word is such a ubiquitous, all-purpose expression - widely displayed by many third-party sellers on phone cases and similar goods - that consumers would see it as conveying a familiar sentiment rather than identifying a single source, so it fails to function as a trademark.
The marks
Applicant
FUCK (standard characters)
Carrying cases for cell phones; carrying cases specially adapted for pocket calculators, laptops and cellphones; cases adapted for mobile phones; cases for spectacles and sunglasses; cell phone cases; spectacles and sunglasses (International Class 9)
Why this decision is significant
Precedential sequel to Iancu v. Brunetti holding that the ubiquitous word FUCK fails to function as a mark across four classes, and that the failure-to-function refusal is viewpoint neutral and unaffected by the Supreme Court’s invalidation of Section 2(a)'s scandalous-matter bar. It is the leading Board authority for refusing single vulgar/expressive words as widely-used commonplace terms.
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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The original record
Read the opinion and every filing on the Board's own docket. The summary above is our paraphrase, not a quotation from the opinion. The opinion is the authority.
Who checked this
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