Vol. 53 No. 4 (2005)
Research Article

Surnames and American Trademark Law

PDF
  • Michael Adams,
  • Jennifer Westerhaus Adams
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/nam.2005.53.4.259

Published 2005-12-01

Copyright (c) 2005 Maney

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Abstract

American law discourages trademark registration of words that look and sound like surnames, yet some surnames are trademarks or parts thereof. The controlling issue in determining whether a mark is “primarily merely a surname” is its primary significance to the purchasing public, but several factors contribute to this determination: (1) surname rareness; (2) personal relation to the surname; (3) alternate meanings; (4) whether the mark has the structure and pronunciation of a surname; and (5) the mark's style. Thus, rarer, semantically developed, transparently onomastic words have a better chance of trademark status: it is by no means easy to determine what counts as the look and sound of a surname. Trademark law inadvertently promotes onomastic discrimination. Because the mass of American consumers easily identifies Western European surnames, those names are better protected from commercial appropriation. The “look and sound of a surname,” after all, is culturally determined. As a result, the law both reflects and reinforces attitudes about what counts as a surname and what doesn't.

PDF

References

  1. Chancellor, Alexander. 1993. “You Say Tomato.” The New Yorker. August 9: 27.
  2. Hanks, Patrick, and Flavia Hodges. 1996. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  3. In re Benthin Management GmbH, 37 U.S.P.Q.2d 1332 (TTAB 1995).
  4. In re Garan, Inc., 3 U.S.P.Q.2d 1537 (TTAB 1987).
  5. In re Industrie Pirelli Societa per Azioni, 9 U.S.P.Q.2d 1564, 1566 (TTAB 1988).
  6. In re Petrin Corp., 231 U.S.P.Q. 902 (TTAB 1986).
  7. MacSweeney EnterprisesiInc. v. Tarantino, 235 Cal. App. 2d 549, 563 (3d Dist. 1965).
  8. McCarthy, J. Thomas, ed. 2003. McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition. Fourth Edition. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
  9. Mencken, H. L. 1936. The American Language. New York: Knopf.
  10. Powell, Anthony. 1986. The Fisher King. New York: W. W. Norton.
  11. Room, Adrian. 1982. Trade Name Origins. Chicago: NTC Publishing.
  12. Smith, Spencer T. 1973. “Primarily Merely.” Trademark Reporter 63: 24–29.
  13. Visser v. Macres, 214 Cal. App. 2d 249, 29 Cal. Rptr. 367 (4th Dist. 1963).