French town ‘too obscure’ to deny trademark
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has ruled that a trademark application for the word ‘Montussan’ can proceed because it is the name of an “obscure location” in France unknown to US consumers.
Food and beverage company Montussan Apéritifs applied to register ‘Montussan’ as a US trademark to cover alcoholic beverages in January 2014. Montussan is a town in south-west France, 15 kilometres from Bordeaux.
In July 2014, John Hwang, the examiner reviewing the case, rejected the application on the grounds that the proposed mark is “geographically descriptive” of its goods.
Hwang cited evidence from travel website france-voyage.com which described Montussan as a town of just under 3,000 inhabitants.
He also cited web pages about the town from websites including Yelp, Airbnb and TripAdvisor, as well as Google searches, as evidence that the name is geographically descriptive.
Furthermore, Hwang said Montussan’s close proximity to Bordeaux, which has “fame and recognition” among US customers, would mean they would have heard of the town and know it as a geographic location.
Montussan Apéritifs then appealed against the decision at the TTAB in January this year.
The three administrative judges assessing the case said on August 12 that Hwang’s evidence was insufficient.
Judge Peter Cataldo, writing the opinion, said that Hwang’s evidence shows that Montussan is a “small town in France” but is “silent as to the recognition of Montussan among American consumers”.
“As such, the term Montussan does not convey a readily recognisable geographical significance to the average American consumer, but rather simply denotes the name of an obscure or remote geographic location,” Cataldo concluded.
Michael Leonard, partner at law firm Fox Rothschild and representing Montussan Apéritifs, said: "Hopefully the issuance of this decision will lead examining attorneys to further consider their reliance on Wikipedia and other ancillary internet evidence when issuing or maintaining a geographic descriptiveness refusal against a mark that may also just happen to be the name of a small and obscure town.
"Simply because a town may have a few internet references and a McDonald's is not enough to show that the town is known to the relevant and average American consumer," he added.
