Court Opinion

ID: 9455631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:28:11.442345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:40.108976
License: Public Domain

RICH, Acting Chief Judge
(concurring).
I agree with the result reached by the majority which is supported by an opinion largely relying on and incorporating by reference the opinion of the board. While I do not disagree with anything said in the majority’s opinion, I do not accord the survey evidence, by which it was attempted to show “secondary meaning,” the significance apparently accorded it by the board. The examiner accorded it none. I do not agree with the board’s statement that “This case turns upon the sufficiency of applicant’s evidence” of “secondary meaning.”
The examiner in this case was of the view, as the board reported, that CUSTOM-BLENDED “is so highly descriptive of applicant’s blended gasoline that it is incapable of becoming distinctive as claimed.” (My emphasis.) If that is so, registration must be refused under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(e) (1) no matter what evidence of alleged “secondary meaning” is adduced; in other words, under the facts of this case the law proscribes the possibility of a de jure “secondary meaning,” notwithstanding the existence of 15 U.S.C. § 1052(f) and a de facto “secondary meaning.” In re Deister Concentrator Co,, 289 F.2d 496, 48 CCPA 952, 963 et seq. (1961), and cases cited therein.
In my opinion, CUSTOM-BLENDED is so highly descriptive that it cannot, under the law, be accorded trademark rights even though at some times, or to some people, or in some places, it has a de facto secondary meaning. My view was expressed by the examiner. I think that conclusively disposes of the matter. While I see no objection to pointing out >to appellant that its evidence has not established “secondary meaning,” I am unwilling to lead appellant or others to think that the fault was in the quantity or quality of its evidence rather than in the descriptiveness of the words sought to be registered.1 Appellant *404should not be encouraged to try again to prove “secondary meaning.” The only particular in which I do not fully agree with the examiner is that he said the word “custom” in CUSTOM-BLENDED “has very little trademark significance.” I think it has none.
Appellant has argued that the descriptive term for its gasoline is “pump-blended.” I do not question that that is a descriptive — or as appellant calls it “generic” — term; but a product may have more than one generically descriptive name. Because one merchandiser has latched onto one of the descriptive terms does not mean it can force its competitors to limit themselves to the use of the others, which appellant, it seems to me, is trying to do here. All of the generic names for a product belong in the public domain. The product itself, for example, is called gasoline in the United States but petrol in England. Clearly both of those names must remain free of proprietary claims, in either country. So it is, in my view, with respect to pump-blended and custom-blended. The examiner stated the factual basis for this view in pointing out that “custom,” as in custom-built, custom-service,2 custom-cut, custom-made, custom-tailored, custom-work, etc., merely indicates that it is done according to the customer’s desire. That is exactly how appellant’s gasolines are pump-blended — to give the customer what he asks for. I can think of no descriptive term which is more apt. In re Bailey Meter Co., 102 F.2d 843, 26 CCPA 1136 (1939).

. I think the solicitor erred in arguing the ease solely on the basis that the only issue before us is the sufficiency of applicant’s evidence to show that CUSTOM-BLENDED now serves as an indication of origin. That was not the examiner’s ground of rejection. It does not appear to me that the board ever made a different one and the examiner’s refusal to register was affirmed. At best, the sufficiency of the evidence is a second-string argument.

. I take judicial notice that, as anyone can observe on the streets of Washington, if one looks past the CUSTOM-BLENDED pumps of a Sunoco station at the front of the apparently standard service station building, one sees the words CUSTOM SERVICE in red letters a foot high across the white front of the building.