Opinion ID: 541778
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether the trial court erred in classifying forum as suggestive.

Text: 57 Appellee argues that if we find that the trial court erred in applying the likelihood of confusion test, we should also reverse the trial court's finding that forum may be protected. In order to determine whether a trademark is subject to protection, a court must determine the mark's place on the spectrum from generic to arbitrary. A generic term can never function as a trademark, while a merely descriptive term may be protected only if it has acquired secondary meaning. Liquid Controls Corp. v. Liquid Control Corp., 802 F.2d 934, 935 (7th Cir.1986). Suggestive and arbitrary terms are protected, without a showing of secondary meaning. Miller Brewing Co. v. G. Heileman Brewing Co., 561 F.2d 75, 79 (7th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1025, 98 S.Ct. 751, 54 L.Ed.2d 772 (1978). The trial court found that forum is suggestive, because it suggests a certain characteristic of the product but is not specific enough to enable the consumer to identify it. Memor. op. at 16 (citing J. Gilson, Trademark Protection and Practice, Sec. 2.04). Appellee argues that this finding is erroneous, that forum is either generic or descriptive. 58 A suggestive term is one that suggests rather than describes an ingredient or characteristic of the goods and requires the observer or listener to use imagination and perception to determine the nature of the goods. Miller Brewing, 561 F.2d at 79. [T]he 'imagination' required to link a suggestive term with the corresponding product 'refers to the mental process required to connect a name that is incongruous or figurative with the product (e.g., 'Roach Motel' with an insect trap or 'TIDE' with soap)....'  G. Heileman Brewing Co. v. Anheuser-Busch Inc., 873 F.2d 985, 997 (7th Cir.1989) (quoting district court opinion, 676 F.Supp. 1436, 1491 n. 46 (E.D.Wis.1987)). 59 The district judge in the present case did not explain how forum suggests the particular programs and methods used by the parties. That forum may be an unfamiliar word which requires a hearer to think about its meaning does not show that it is suggestive. Forum at most describes the teaching method used by the parties and is neither incongruous nor figurative in its method of description. We rejected in G. Heileman v. Anheuser-Busch the argument that L.A. is a suggestive term, because of the thought process required to translate initials into descriptive words. Id. If that thought process is not enough to make initials suggestive, then the thought process required to understand forum as suggestive of the parties' programs is not either. The district court erred by classifying forum as suggestive. 60 Appellee urges us to find that forum is generic and, therefore, not subject to trademark protection. The district court considered Webster's definition for forum: 61 3a: an organization that holds public meetings for the discussion of subjects of current interest b: a meeting that is held by such an organization and is frequently in the form of a question period following a lecture; broadly: a lecture followed by audience discussion and questioning of the lecturer.... 62 Webster's Third International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam Company 1961) at p. 896; Def. Ex. 109. The court concluded that consumers of business training programs do not consider 'Forum' to be a generic reference to that line of products. Memor. op. at 5. We agree. 63 A generic term is one that is commonly used as the name of a kind of goods. Liquid Controls, 802 F.2d at 936. In order to be generic ... the word in question must serve to denominate a type, a kind, a genus or a subcategory of goods [or services]. Heileman, 873 F.2d at 997. Because a generic term is a name in common usage, a dictionary has been used as evidence about the meaning attached by a linguistic group to a particular ... symbol. Id. 64 In Henri's Food, we applied a similar analysis to the word tasty as it relates to salad dressing and reversed the district court's finding that it is generic: 65 [U]nlike 'light beer,' [which is generic] 'tasty salad dressing' is not a kind, sort, genus or subcategory of salad dressing.... There can be no suggestion that 'tasty dressing' is a kind or type or subcategory of dressing such as, for example, French dressing. 66 Henri's Food, 817 F.2d at 1306. 67 Although forum describes a method for teaching business skills or any other subject--a lecture followed by audience discussion and questioning of the lecturer--it does not name any commonly used category or subcategory. [C]onsumers of business training programs do not consider 'Forum' to be a generic reference to that line of products. Memor. op. at 5. Moreover, the parties provide a service which includes more than a simple forum, since they sometimes customize teaching methods for companies and sometimes provide written materials for participants to use outside of the seminar. The service is also different from many other types of forums, because of the skills which are taught, the specific target audience and the fact that there is a fairly substantial charge for attendance at these business skills forums. Forum describes a characteristic of the services provided by the parties, not the service itself. 68 We are, therefore, led to the conclusion that forum is a descriptive term, in contrast to the trial judge's conclusion that it is suggestive. He distinguished forum from other descriptive terms as follows: 69 'Forum,' ... does not specifically describe business training and education programs. Nor is use of the term necessary to describing similar services. While the term suggests something about the format of plaintiff[-appellant]'s programs, it is not 'merely descriptive' in the trademark sense. 70 Memor. op. at 6. We must disagree with the trial court's reasoning and conclusion. First, it is not necessary that a descriptive term depict the service itself, but only that the term refer to a characteristic of the service. Miller, 561 F.2d at 79. Second, the word need not be necessary to the description of similar services. In Liquid Controls, we noted the fact that descriptive terms may be needed in order to describe services of a similar nature, 802 F.2d at 936, in order to show why such words could not be removed from the public domain. We did not, either there or in any other case, find that a term must be necessary to describe similar products before it can be classified as descriptive. Such a rule would mean that any word which has a synonym is not descriptive, and that is clearly not the law in this circuit. If forum is descriptive, as we have concluded, then it is entitled to trademark protection only if it has acquired secondary meaning. 71