Opinion ID: 767089
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 2 On November 30, 1993, the Boston Beer Company filed an application to register The Best Beer In America on the principal register for beverages, namely beer and ale, in Class 32. Boston Beer claimed use since 1985 and asserted that the words sought to be registered have acquired distinctiveness under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(f). Boston Beer claimed secondary meaning based on annual advertising expenditures in excess of ten million dollars and annual sales under the mark of approximately eighty-five million dollars. Specifically, Boston Beer spent about two million dollars on promotions and promotional items which included the phrase The Best Beer in America. 3 In support of its claims, Boston Beer submitted an affidavit of its founder and co-president, James Koch, asserting that the words sought to be registered had developed secondary meaning as a source-indicator for its goods by virtue of extensive promotion and sales of beer under the mark since June 1985. It also submitted an advertisement for a competitor's product, Rolling Rock Bock beer, which included an invitation to sample the beer that bested 'The Best Beer in America,' as evidence that Rolling Rock regards The Best Beer in America as Boston Beer's trademark. The examining attorney rejected the proposed mark as merely descriptive and cited articles retrieved from the NEXIS database showing the proposed mark used by Boston Beer and others as a laudatory phrase to refer to superior beers produced by a number of different brewers. All of the beers mentioned had either won comparison competitions or had been touted as the best in America by their makers or others. Boston Beer responded by submitting articles showing its use of the proposed mark to refer to its product and in promoting its beer as a winner of the annual beer competition in Denver. Additionally, it argued that if marks such as Best Products and American Airlines can be registered even though they are also used descriptively, then the proposed mark should be similarly registered. The examining attorney issued a final refusal to register under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(e)(1), holding that Boston Beer had failed to establish that the mark had become distinctive. 4 Boston Beer filed a notice of appeal and attached further exhibits to its appeal brief. The application was remanded to the examiner on his request for consideration of the new evidence. Another office action was issued denying registration for lack of distinctiveness which noted that the phrase sought to be registered was selected and used after Boston Beer received awards at the Great American Beer Festival. The board then allowed Boston Beer to file a supplemental brief. Action on the appeal was suspended and the board remanded the application. 5 The examiner concluded that the proposed mark is the name of a genus of goods, namely beers brewed in America that have won taste competitions or were judged best in taste tests, and included printouts from the Boston Beer Internet web site to show that it had adopted the proposed mark after it had won such competitions. He therefore issued an office action rejecting the proposed mark as generic and thus incapable of registration. Boston Beer submitted a second supplemental brief to respond to the genericness rejection. After the examiner filed his appeal brief, Boston Beer filed a third supplemental brief arguing against genericness and moved to strike portions of the examiner's brief. Boston Beer argued that the examiner was limited to responding to the issues raised in the second supplemental brief, namely genericness, and could not address descriptiveness and acquired distinctiveness. Boston Beer argued that its proposed mark was not generic because there was no single category at the Great American Beer Festival and thus no best beer in America award. The board rejected the motion to strike. 6 The board found the proposed mark to be merely descriptive because it is only laudatory and simply a claim of superiority, i.e., trade puffery. In re Boston Beer, 47 USPQ2d at 1919. The proposed mark was found not to be generic because the examiner's characterization of the genus or class of goods as 'beers brewed in America which have won taste competitions or were judged best in taste tests' stretches the limits of our language and is inconsistent with common usage. Id. at , 47 USPQ2d at 1919. The board held, however, that the proposed mark inherently cannot function as a trademark because such claims of superiority should be freely available to all competitors in any given field to refer to their products or services. Id. at , 47 USPQ2d at 1920-21. Finally, the board said that [e]ven if [it] were to find this expression to be capable of identifying applicant's beer and distinguishing it from beer made or sold by others, [the board] also would find, in view of the very high degree of descriptiveness which inheres in these words, that applicant has failed to establish secondary meaning in them as an identification of source. Id. This appeal followed.