Decisions · 88310900
In re Erik Brunetti
Serial No. 88310900 · Decided 2022-08-22 · Other
What happened
The Board affirmed the refusal to register FUCK (standard characters) for retail store, online retail, consumer product advice, advertising and promotion services, finding that because those services feature the very kinds of message-bearing goods (phone accessories, bags, jewelry, clothing) on which the ubiquitous word is widely displayed, consumers would take FUCK at its ordinary expressive meaning rather than as a service mark identifying a single source.
The marks
Applicant
FUCK (standard characters)
Retail store and online retail store services featuring a wide variety of consumer goods of others (including accessories for cellphones and computers, bags, clothing, jewelry, sunglasses, toys and watches); consumer product information and advice; advertising, direct marketing, online trading, promotion and business management consultancy services (International Class 35)
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.
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