Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-46_8n59.pdf
Page Number: 21

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

convey the “genus of which the particular product is a spe-
cies.”  Park ’N Fly, 469 U. S., at 196.  A generic term is not
eligible for use as a trademark.  That principle applies even
if a particular generic term “ha[s] become identified with a
first user” in the minds of the consuming public.  CES Pub-
lishing Corp. v. St. Regis Publications, Inc., 531 F. 2d 11, 13 
(CA2  1975)  (Friendly,  J.).  The  reason  is simple.    To  hold 
otherwise “would grant the owner of the mark a monopoly,
since a competitor could not describe his goods as what they 
are.”  Ibid. 

Courts have recognized that it is not always easy to dis-
tinguish  generic  from  descriptive  terms.  See,  e.g.,  Aber-
crombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, Inc., 537 F. 2d 4, 9 
(CA2 1976) (Friendly, J.).  It is particularly difficult to do so 
when a firm wishes to string together two or more generic
terms to create a compound term.  Despite the generic na-
ture of its component parts, the term as a whole is not nec-
essarily  generic.  In  such  cases,  courts  must  determine 
whether the combination of generic terms conveys some dis-
tinctive,  source-identifying  meaning  that  each  term,  indi-
vidually, lacks.  See 2 J. McCarthy, Trademarks and Unfair 
Competition §12:39 (5th ed. June 2020 update) (McCarthy).
If the meaning of the whole is no greater than the sum of 
its parts, then the compound is itself generic.  See Princeton 
Vanguard, LLC v. Frito-Lay North Am., Inc., 786 F. 3d 960, 
966–967 (CA Fed. 2015); In re Gould Paper Corp., 834 F. 2d 
1017, 1018 (CA Fed. 1987) (registration is properly denied 
if  “the  separate  words  joined  to  form  a  compound  have  a 
meaning identical to the meaning common usage would as-
cribe to those words as a compound”); see also 2 McCarthy
§12:39 (collecting examples of compound terms held to be 
generic).

In Goodyear, 128 U. S. 598, we held that appending the
word “ ‘Company’ ” to the generic name for a class of goods 
does not yield a protectable compound term.  Id., at 602– 
603.  The addition of a corporate designation, we explained,