Federal Circuit Addresses Genericism, Descriptiveness, and Acquired Distinctiveness

In the recent Federal Circuit decision in In re Steelbuilding.com, No. 04-1447 (July 11, 2005), the Federal Circuit held that the TTAB erred in holding the mark STEELBUILDING.COM generic. In a decision that provides a helpful roadmap for future cases (particular for "________.com" marks), the Court held that the Board described the genus wrong, made its decision on too little evidence, and gave too short shrift to the effect of the ".com" TLD portion of the asserted mark.

Unfortunately for the applicant, the Federal Circuit did uphold the Board's decision that the mark was merely descriptive and, over a dissent, that it lacked secondary meaning. Curiously, the majority didn't even mention much of the evidence in the record that Judge Linn's dissent thought required a vacatur of the Board's finding of no secondary meaning. It's frustrating when a dissent mentions evidence in a record that it thinks requires a contrary result, yet the majority doesn't even deign to say why that evidence didn't require a different result from the one it reached. That situation makes it hard to figure out how to use the decision as precedent in future disputes.