In departing from my past practice of posting lengthy blogs, I am trying to be brief as possible with this one!
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") recently rejected Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc.'s original & modified trademark applications against www.Lawyers.com. The deciding attorney reaffirmed his first decision on appeal. This after Reed dropped the word lawyer from the renewed application. Reed maintains the website and the Martindale-Hubbel Division, offering such services to the general public, in addition to information about how to contact lawyers, as legal advise and general legal information via message boards. The PTO ruled that despite their assertions to the contrary, the site's genus would only confuse the public instead of serving them. Reed appealed the PTO's ruling to the Federal Circuit where they upheld the board's decision. Since the information in lawyers dot com was generic and contained no distinctiveness, the PTO and court "held that the offer of information from and about lawyers was an inextricably interwined element of that service."
You can read the full version at http://technologiy.findlaw.com/articles/00006/01079.html ("Lawyers.com Ruled to Generic to Trademark). Kevin Fayle, Findlaw 2007.
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